#It is kind of a bummer though because there are a few people who I thought would be interested in it

[sleeplessdreamer14]

𝕬𝖍, 𝕭𝖚𝖙 𝕿𝖍𝖆𝖙 𝕱𝖎𝖗𝖘𝖙 𝕶𝖎𝖑𝖑

𝔣𝔞𝔫𝔡𝔬𝔪: what we do in the shadows

𝔰𝔲𝔪𝔪𝔞𝔯𝔶: you’re a half-blood vampire and you take your first victim.

𝔴𝔞𝔯𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔤: canon typical themes, brief cathartic violence, (implied) attempted sa, minor character death, blo0d (obviously)

𝔞/𝔫: the ending may be a bit rushed I just really wanted to post this already

“I was bitten, I believe…” you began, pausing for a moment to do some math in your head, wiggling one of your feet as you sat on the couch. “Two months ago. And y’know, in terms of vampirism, being a half-blood has its perks.” you continued with a shrug.

The scene cuts to you sitting in your bedroom in the light of the sun, completely unharmed. And your bed wasn’t a coffin, but took a similar shape. You gave the coffin a try once when you were first turned, but you couldn’t really sleep. Another scene showed you snacking on a Kit-Kat while reading.

“I can still eat human food, though I am garlic intolerant now, which is kind of a bummer. But that’s not even my biggest problem.”

The camera shows footage of you unscrewing the cap on a liter bottle containing a thick, dark burgundy liquid before pouring it into a glass.

“My vampire half still needs blood, like once or twice a week. Found that out the hard way.”

During your first week of being a vampire, you got very lightheaded and fainted in the middle of the hall since you hadn’t drank any blood since turning. Since you could digest human food, you could go a bit longer than most vampires without blood, but you still needed it.

“Straight up, I’m not a fan. Drinking it is one thing, draining it from the body is another.” you admitted, shaking your head and shrugging. “I ju- I can’t. I’ve tried, and I can’t.”

Thankfully, Lazlo had recently taken a victim that day so they gathered enough spare blood out of the chap to give to you.

The cameras cut to an interview with Lazlo and Nadja, sitting side by side as per usual.

“We don’t really mind saving blood for them sometimes,” Nadja said. “Most of our victims, we don’t even finish all the way.”

The footage cuts to a short scene of Nadja holding up a still bleeding victim by the shirt whilst Guillermo holds the aforementioned liter bottle with a funnel in the top to collect blood, grimacing and trying to just focus on keeping the funnel in the bottle.

“Yes, but we do believe it’s about time they learn to attain blood for themself.” Lazlo said, and Nadja nodded in agreement. “The only thing I’ve seen them drain was a goose. And even after that, they insisted on burying it.”

“Even though it bit the shit out of them.” Nadja added. “In the wild, baby animals rely on their mothers for sustenance for the first few months of their lives before learning to hunt for themselves. (Name) is kind of like our weird little pup.”

You knew they were right. You had been a vampire for two months, and you still had yet to take a human victim. The problem was that you would always overthink it. For one thing, you didn’t want to kill an innocent person, but he cause of all the ‘what if’s, you couldn’t really detect anyone really deserving of such a gruesome and sudden death. Curse this big heart of yours. Plus it was New York, and Staten Island for that matter. Who knows where these people have been and what’s running through their veins?

But half-blood or not, learning to hunt is essential.

Anyway, you were walking through the streets one night with the others since they had recently found a good hunting ground and didn’t want to leave you alone in the house. Nandor suggested that maybe one of them would have the general disposition of a goose and you could drain them. You weren’t too sure about that, but thanked him anyway.

Now, one of the perks of your vampire half was an enhanced sense of hearing, and because of this, you overheard a conversation from inside one of the apartments,

“I’m should really go now… I can’t stand up.”

That made you stop. If your blood wasn’t already running cold, it just got colder. Guillermo seemed to notice you falling behind. “(Name), are you still coming?”

“Uh, yeah, um..” you hesitated, glancing between them and the apartment, bouncing on your feet slightly. “I’ll uh.. I’ll meet you guys there, okay? I’ll just be a minute.”

Before they could respond, you turned into a bat and flew up towards wherever the voice came from. A knot began to form in your tiny stomach as you dreaded what you might find, and when you came up to the window, your suspicions were confirmed as you peered into the dimly lit room. That was all you needed to bare your teeth and shift back into your human form, rearing your foot back to kick the window open.

It seemed the universe noticed you needed incentive and answered.

Nadja wiped some excess blood from her jaw and licked her lips, humming contently. It had been only been about twenty minutes since you went off on your own, and she hoped you were alright, wondering what you could have been doing. As if on cue, she heard a familiar squeaking and the sound of little wings flapping towards them.

“Nadja! Nadja Nadja Na-”

POOF

“Nadja!” you exclaimed joyfully after landing on your feet and regaining your composure. All three vampires and one human turned to face your direction, and were surprised to see you with a beaming smile on your blood stained face. “I did it!” you exclaimed with excitement, panting slightly.

Realization dawned on the pod of vampires, and Nadja’s smile grew to match your own.

“All by yourself?” “Yes!!”

Laughter filled the air as Nadja pulled you in for a short hug. You sighed in exhilaration, “Call em crazy but I kinda wanna do it again.”

“We have plenty of time before the sun rises again,” Lazlo said, smiling proudly at you with a hand around your shoulders as you walked with them. “Plenty of time to get your practice in.”

Yeah, you were gonna do just like fine.

[genericpuff]

i had a post in the works talking about some of my personal life shit and the things i'm looking to do with rekindled this year to help make personal life shit easier aaand then i fell asleep for a nap and when i woke up Rachel announced that LO was ending in less than 10 episodes ??

sooo yeah i'm officially saving that post for later, because LO is officially ending, with an actual end date. It does mean that it's not ending at the start of Spring like my initial prediction, which is a bummer (because that would have been really cool LMAOOO) but it does mean it gets to go on long enough to resolve the current plot arc. As for every other plotline in the story... yeah, those aren't getting wrapped up, at least not in any way that could be satisfying.

For over the last year LO has been a series of "wait seriously???" and this is yet another, though it's kind of different this time. We knew the end was coming and practically begging for Rachel to pick an end date because for many, following along with this comic has become a Sisyphean task week after week. It's bittersweet in a way, but . . . I also kinda don't feel anything? Maybe it's just my 'tism, maybe it's just the fact that I'm so tired of following this series, but I just... don't feel joy, but I don't feel dread. It's ending and that's that. As all things come and go in life, some day there won't be any more LO, and that day is May 11th.

I will miss the weekly readalongs that I would do with pals, the memes we'd make out of the new material, but I don't think I'm going to miss the comic and everything it said and did. At this point reading LO feels like watching a horse struggle to breathe and you're just begging the farmer to put it out of its misery, but the farmer thinks "No no, it'll be fine! It'll get back up in no time!" and it's like... no, it desperately needs to be put to rest 💀

I still have my two drafts stowed away, both on opposing sides of the fence depending on how LO turns out-

-and now we finally have an end date on when those essays will be written.

I don't know how I feel yet about it ending. These are complicated feelings to sort through regarding a comic that's basically been my life for the last few years, even before I turned into a critic of it. I'm just glad there's a light at the end of the tunnel. And I'm glad even my "love to hate it" energy has been waning on it the past few weeks anyways so that the end of it all can feel as painless as possible LOL Don't get me wrong, there will still be plenty to discuss after the comic, I don't think the antiLO/ULO community will just disappear into a puff of smoke as soon as LO is over, but I think a lot of us are also equally relieved that the comic made it this easy to stop reading and that it now has an end point.

And most of all, I'm hoping that whatever ending the comic brings, even if it just winds up being the S2 finale all over again for the critics, is still satisfying for the fans who have stuck around with it this long. The people who have loved this comic through it all at least deserve a proper send-off and I really hope Rachel gives it to them.

As for me... I'm not going anywhere, but it's been nice to stuff the overflowing clothes of LO back into its drawer within my brain. I want to make room for other drawers, other things, other pieces of work that will undoubtedly bring me more joy and entertainment. I don't know what yet, but it's nice to know the drawers aren't overflowing anymore.

And that's all I'm gonna say on that.

[kravchikfreak]

I'm sorry if this ask is coming out of nowhere, but I have been looking for posts that talk about how S2 has declined in quality and there have been virtually NONE. Even tags like 'arcane critical' or 'anti arcane' don't show up even though I know there are posts that are tagged with them. I'm losing my mind. Has nobody else noticed this downgrade? The ideas could have been good, but they were not executed well and the whole thing reads like they wrote it really quickly without any real editing and then rushed to get it out. It feels hollow, like we're seeing a botched or unfinished version of what it was supposed to be. What kind of random ass shit is it that an enforcer comes up to Vi and says, "cait said good things about you," and Vi is just like wow you're right, I'm sold! Even though she already knows Cait has a high opinion of her and that wasn't the issue in the first place! Also who was that random homeless man? Why am I supposed to care about these people? Fans get defensive about the pacing and argue that s1 did a lot in a minimal amount of time too, but I don't think they realize that pacing has to do with making something feel organic. Vi's heel turn into becoming an enforcer was not organic. Viktor's two second goodbye was not organic. Both of these things could have made sense if they'd given these moments even just a little more effort or care. There were so many unnecessary scenes that could have been cut out to give more time to things that desperately needed it (like caitlyn's sad wordless montage about her mom. Why did it drag out so long? Her grief is apparent in every other scene. We did not need an entire abstract slideshow of her making various sad expressions.) There's also the animation. The animation is leagues above a regularly animated show, but if you look closely it is actually not as good as s1. There is less detail, the lighting of the background doesn't always match the characters, and there are moments where the lips don't always sync with their voices. These are minor things that I wouldn't usually care about, but for a multi-million dollar show like Arcane? Riot games recently laid off a whole slew of its creative team, too, and I wonder if they've been making similar cuts before that. It would certainly explain the drop in quality. I wouldn't put it past corporate greed to nerf one of the most groundbreaking animated shows in modern media if they thought they could profit more by cutting corners.

I'm sorry to ramble in your inbox as a random stranger, but it boggles my mind that there are so few people mentioning s2's flaws (not including rage bait, which is annoying because it only delegitamizes real criticisms and discussions.) I feel like I'm screaming in the void like is nobody else seeing this shit??

well hello there! first of all, "arcane critical" is what i was looking for when i was writing that post. gonna put it in tags now before i forget

secondly, i love asks! so no need to apologize. thirdly it's a bummer you went under anonym, i don't believe you get notifs for your anonymous asks, so unless you actually hang out on my blog regularly there's a chance you won't see me appreciating your thoughts and agreeing with you (expect for the animation part, cause for me it was great, i have no questions on that regard. but for each their own. i'm a big fun of the dragon prince first season's animation and still sad they get rid of their 13fps style, so...)

anyway, i got bored at the beginning of my rumbling that time and didn't get into some deep analysis but yes, the first season also had events to go fast and forward, but at the same time they made sense. it wasn't rush or dragged, every scene had a meaning and weight

YES to the burial scene. like i get it, it was drawn pretty and it was sad and grey for cait but my god how many hours can we watch vi going away from 317 different angles? i was actually shocked to see her at cait's, cause after 10 minutes of her hiding in the crowd and leaving before cait saw her i was legit sure the show tried to tell us they broke up for now and won't see each other for a while

and it all feels so odd, as if on the one hand writers had too little allowed episodes to work with their ideas, like they came up with all these important story points but had no more screen time to add actual story development between the points, cause the season is like 10 episodes too short to fit a full coherent story. but on the other hand they have too much unused screen time, like they wrote only 5 episodes but they had to make 9 so now we will just fill the equivalent of 4 episodes of free time with mute repetitive long scenes

who the fuck is that mute lizard cop? is he actually mute? or there were no budget on one more voice actor? what's his problem? why he always looks like he's mad at everyone? should i even care he's always displeased? does he even matter? if no, why he has so much screen time and close-up shots? if yes, why he has no meaning or story or character or name? i swear to god, in the first season that one future-junkie dude had more of a meaning and weight in his two minutes scene than these lizard cop and the new jinx's sister during two episodes

and it all would've been fine, really, if it was the first season, or one of these already bad shows that you don't really expect much of. but arcane was a masterpiece, and also we've been waiting for it for three years. so it's the feeling that we know how GOOD it can be, and the feeling that it just chose not to

w....wait... what if they also tried to do great? and failed to do good in the process

or maybe, as you said, just some internal kitchen shit. i never actually follow media creation stuff and staff so maybe that's just it. still not make it all better for me as a viewer who was too excited to learn at 1 am that the act dropped and stayed up until 7am to make sure to watch it before getting to sleep

HEY THANK YOU for giving me opportunity to rumble about it again

[alittlebitofloveliness]

modern day curtis and shepard gang headcannons? Like they're old men and women

Hi anon! Sorry this took so long I'm a certified human disaster and my life is kind of in shambles rn

ANYWAY modern day old outsiders headcanons:

-First of all I did some quickmaths, so Darry would be 79 in 2024, Two-bit and Tim Shepard would be 78, Steve would be 76, Soda would be 75, and Curly & Angela Shepard would be 74, and Ponyboy would be 73

-Realistically atp Two would have died of like liver failure but I'm gonna try not to make this a bummer so lets say my man is in a nursing home and spends all day flirting with the nurses and the ladies in the home (who all adore him)

-Lbr Darry would absolutely be the grumpiest of old men (him and Two are in the same home) but he also tells the best stories and is secretly a big softie so all the young, nervous nurses like him the best

-Tim Shepard would rather be dead than in a nursing home and he says as much to anyone who ever suggests he needs one. Angela keeps trying, because he's barely mobile (old injuries + arthritis) but he refuses. Angela knows it's because Sylvia is burried in the graveyard down the block from there, and Tim doesn't want to leave his best friend, even though she's been dead for years he still can't leave her

-Angela lives alone. Having grown up in a turbulent house and worked almost every day of her adult life she enjoys her solitude. Nowadays she takes her fighting spirit to Monday night bingo where she CAN and WILL still strangle you Betty Anne if you try callin' bingo again when we both knows you aint got it-

-Steve and Sodapop live together at the old Curtis house. The neighbours kids have it rough so they come around a lot. Soda bakes cakes when he's got the energy, and Steve has mellowed a bit in his old age and spoils the kids rotten even when lecturing them and basically they act like grandfathers to these two little delinquent kids, who in turn do chores around the house so Soda and Steve can KEEP living there and don't have to go into a home or something

-Curly Shepard and Ponyboy Curtis live together, in a little apartment (Pony moved back to Tulsa when he retired, and Curly followed him like he always does. It's a little inside joke of theirs, since ever since they got together they've never been apart for more than a few days). Neither of them will admit it, but Curly's mind isn't what is used to be, the result of all those head injuries when he was younger finally catching up to him, and it kills Ponyboy a little to see the confusion in his eyes and the way he gets agitated when he can't remember something.

-The Curtis brothers all do that thing where they're always on the phone with one another

-Tim, Angela, and Curly all go out for breakfast together on Saturdays

-Tim has a walking stick and uses it to whack people with

-Two-bit manages to talk one of the nurses into smuggling him extra pudding cups with his dinner and the other residents (including Darry) get real up in arms about it

-Steve and Soda have tv shows that are on at a certain time each week that they steadfastly refuse to miss even though the neighbour kids have tried convincing them to get a netflix account and showeed them how to use the DVR so they could record them

-Steve complains about modern cars and their 'new fangled technology with their screens and electric engines' not being as good as the cars from when he was young

-Darry and Ponyboy compete to see who can get the wordle in the fewest guesses and they both sulk if they lose

[muffinrecord]

Not MagiReco, just Life Stuff

I've been doing a lot of reading lately, not just of star mythology books but memoirs from EMTs, Firefighters, and Rangers. Trying to study and get research in for the story I wanna make. I've also been reading a lot about bears which are slowly becoming a favorite animal. How dare bears look so goofy and silly while being so dangerous!!!! Scandal!!!! I've also been reading about cults and stuff, which is also research. Also medical stuff on how to repair injuries if you're in the wilds with no one else coming to help you. My protag is a former EMT so she needs a decent-ish amount of medical backing.

If I do actually start writing my story, and if people notice it, and if I somehow make money off of it, I think my current dream goal is to start a lil fundraiser and donate money to various EMS organizations. Like maybe help fundraise money so that a place can get a new vehicle with state-of-the-art equipment. I can't think of a cooler thing to do.

I think the next few things I wanna start reading about is Alaska, where the story takes place. A friend is helping me with the inside scoop of living there, but it's always good to diversify your sources and learn as much as possible. I've been watching videos and stuff but I just absorb stuff through physical text easiest.

If folks are curious; my story (When the Sun is Gone) is about star-themed magical girls (magical women?) called Celestials. I'd categorize their magical duties more similar to EMT/Firefighter/Ranger work than police/army stuff. I really want to focus on them protecting the community and the kind of struggle that arises from it. The monsters should feel more like a wildfire than a person. There are infections that develop when monsters and humans live too close together, called "lunacy" (cause these monsters formed from the lingering corpse from the dead moon god), and this presents a problem because you gotta cure these people who are going through some issues and might fight back about it. And if you don't cure them in time, they might become fully fledged monsters that they can't come back from. Some of them want to be helped, some of them don't.

There's a dead moon cult up to no good too, which is difficult for the protagonist to deal with. The cult does some negative shit to the outside populace for sure, but the real issue is that the leaders are hurting their own people inside and those victims don't want to be saved because they think this is all for their benefit. How do you help people like that? Do you walk away, even if they're being hurt? Even if they do want to be helped, how do you do it? Sometimes the protag has the best intentions but it goes horribly wrong. You can do everything right and still fail. It's hard to not take that personally or to feel like a failure.

I don't want it to be too much of a bummer of a book though, so balancing failure and winning is going to be a tricky issue. But I think it will be fun. A lot of the research I've been doing is been to prepare for the right mindset for the Celestials to be in and for different ways for my protag do develop burnout and depression akfsjsafklas. Something I've noticed from a lot of the memoirs is that they almost always start out hopefully, optimistic, and anxious about their new job. Then they develop almost an addiction to the crazy nature of it all, to the unpredictability, the out-of-the-box thinking involved in street/wilderness medicine, and to the adrenaline rush. But as it goes on, that becomes burnout, then depression, occasionally suicidal ideation. The lucky ones get out before it becomes irreparable. We always read about the lucky ones because they're the ones who survived to write a book.

That said, it's scary to work on personal projects because of stuff like perfectionism. But if you're too worried about "perfect" then you'll just end up in the situation I'm in, where you never get started lol. But still, it's scary to write something personal and think that someone might read it and be disappointed in it. What if it's just not very good? The other thing that frequently comes up in my head is "am I really the right person to tell this story? What if I get it wrong?" What if I hurt someone's feelings by getting it wrong? What if I say something wildly inaccurate and contribute to misinformation out there? Or what if it's morally wrong to read memoirs about people's tragedies for the sake of your creative writing? I'm "using" a person's life to mine for storytelling material. It feels wrong to do that. Is it okay? Am I doing a bad thing here?

But maybe it's okay to write something that isn't very good, and maybe it's okay if I'm not the "right" person to make it. I don't know. I feel a pull to move my feet forward though, step by step, and see if I can do my best at least.

I think one thing I'm really thankful for from the game and this fandom is that I was just myself and people seemed to like that. I could shout out my loud opinions about stories or gameplay into the void and people would agree or disagree, but they were generally polite and excited.

This is a lil all over the place ajfaslfaf

But-- if you've been checking out the blog, then thanks for being here :) I hope that the upcoming liveblogs will be fun to read. If you decide to hang out and read my stupid lil story in the future, then thank you for giving that a chance too. But no worries if you aren't.

<3

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA if I(26nb) stopped answering my ex (27nb) or asked them to stop messaging me?

They aren't asking to get back together. A while back, my partner dumped me bc we just weren't talking as much, were into different things, and drifted apart. Normal stuff people break up over all the time. They told me there was no hard feelings on their end, and I was the same. It was kind of a bummer but the fact that I wasn't especially upset was evidence the relationship was dead at that point.

At the time, my New Ex™️ asked if I needed space or if it would be okay to check in on me from time to time and make sure I was okay because, even though I said I was fine, they were worried about the effect this would have on my mental health. I'm clinically depressed and they were aware things had gotten pretty drastic years before we even met, but the entire time we knew each other I was stable, and even when I was low I wasn't a danger to myself. I have meds and a good therapist and a lot of practice with coping strategies, I'm good to go, I got a handle on myself before we met and I still have a handle on myself now. Obviously mental health isn't a guaranteed thing and just because I'm currently okay doesn't mean I always will be, but I have the tools to handle it when needed.

All this to say, when they asked if they could check up on my mental health, I was a little taken aback, wondering if they thought this would drive me to something extreme and if so why would they think that. I assured them that I was fine, totally stable and doing well and they had nothing to worry about, but I'd like to stay friends so sure, message me whenever you want.

I figured they'd check in on me in the immediate aftermath, which they did, but I thought that once that aftermath had passed they would go back to messaging me more conversationally, if at all. But since then, they keep doing "check in's" every few weeks to make sure I'm okay. This is not something they did when we were dating. I've been playing along because I'm the one who said it was okay, but I'm starting to feel a little bit weird about it?

Maybe I'm being too sensitive but it rubs me the wrong way that they only message me to do these check-ins, as if they think I'm going to fly off the deep end because we broke up. As if messaging me isn't having a convo with a friend but is instead some sort of wellness check they're obligated to perform. Like I said, I was taken aback to begin with by the implications of this, but now that they're still treating me like that months later, it's kind of pissing me off.

They literally just say "checking in" and nothing else, and they don't seem keen to converse otherwise. It gives me wellness check vibes which bothers me because I'm not in crisis, I've never been in crisis while they've known me, and them dumping me certainly didn't change that. I cannot emphasize enough that even when I was deep in depressive lows while we dated, it was never their job to do this sort of thing and they only started doing it after we broke up. It feels like they think I'm too weak or too unstable to actually be okay without them, even though I've repeatedly said that I'm currently thriving and to my knowledge there's no reason for them to think I'm currently a danger to myself.

Part of me wants to just start ignoring the messages but I'm worried that if this person thinks I'm so at-risk they need to keep checking on me months and months after dumping me, they might assume the worst if I just stop answering. The rest of me wants to just ask them to knock it off, but in that case I'm worried I'll come off as defensive and unreasonable, like I'm being offended over someone caring about my wellbeing, or that my frustration with this behaviour will make it come off harsher than I want it to. I don’t want to attack them for being worried about me, even if I find the degree of worry a bit insulting at this point.

My ex does not have an anxiety disorder and is not an anxious person at all. I have never threatened to do anything to myself in the time they've known me, and my reaction to the breakup was very calm and casual. I don’t know why they're acting like this, but it feels... I dunno, infantilizing? Condescending? I don’t know how exactly to describe it other than that it kind of feels like a slap in the face after the years and years of work I put into getting to this point with my mental health, none of which I needed them or even knew them for.

Would I be the asshole if I asked them to stop and was honest about why? Should I just ask them to stop and not elaborate? But then, if they ask, I don't want to lie, but maybe this is a situation where honesty isn't the best policy? Should I keep my mouth shut because they aren't actually doing anything wrong and I'm the one who said I fine with them checking on me? I was fine with it in the short-term, if a bit confused, but I never imagined it would still be going on months later.

What are these acronyms?

[anipgarden]

*cracks knuckles* Alright everyone strap in.

Hi, I'm Ani, the appointed Milkweed Queen of several Discord group chats, and I'm gonna talk about some of my favorite types of milkweed because its Earth Day, I'm bored, and I had nothing else ready to post. Everyone ready?

I'm not going to give these a formal ranking, I'm just going to ramble about them.

We all know the important reasons to like milkweed--supporting Monarchs, feeding the pollinators, restoring native species to your local habitat and creating an environment for many creatures to live in, that's all fantastic obviously. With that established, this ranking system will have little to do with that. We're talking aesthetics, babey! And any fun facts I happen to toss in are, well, fun facts. If you learn about a new kind of milkweed from this, or want to chime in with your own favorites, by all means let me know!

Swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata)! If you've been following my blog for awhile, you likely know I've been on a Grand Quest to find, purchase, and/or grow swamp milkweed for a few years now. Honestly, though, who can blame me! Look at those vibrant pink flowers, contrasting with those bright green leaves! Love at first sight, I'm telling you. I've also heard that it smells like vanilla. Vanilla! It's also, reportedly, one of the few types of milkweed that excels in wet environments, and even though my environment isn't very wet, we stan a queen for that quality.

Whether you prefer to call it Sandhill Milkweed or Pinewoods Milkweed, Asclepias humistrata is a champion of sandy soils and also my heart. I hadn't looked too far into this species until late last year, when I was helping another friend look at different milkweeds, but how could I not look into this beautiful plant! With pink stems and veins as early as the seedling stage, pinkish-white flowers and a low-growing spread habit, I would be honored to grow such a specimen in my garden. Their inch-thick, foot-long tap roots help them to quickly spring back to life after a wildfire, providing important food and habitat for creatures returning to the area. How lovely!

Redring milkweed (Asclepias variegata) is another species I hadn't looked too far into until this year, and honestly at great detriment to myself. I'll be honest! I may have ignored this queen at first because I'm not big on white flowers, but those red rings...! Ooh, I want this so bad. The leaves are also fairly big and a lovely dark green, which just makes the white and red pop out more!

Heartleaf milkweed (Asclepias cordifolia) is honestly so iconic, I wish it was native to my region! If you live on the West coast... grow some for me please. How can you not love this specimen! Dusty green heart-shaped leaves directly attached to pink stems, these stunning deep reddish-purple flower clusters...! I continued following one of the most annoying people I'd ever witnessed on Instagram for two months just because I first saw this species in a tiktok of his.

Purple milkweed (Asclepias purparescens) is honestly just. A queen. What else is there to say? Look how purple she is! So purple I almost can't believe it's even real, and yet they are! Not native to my region, far as I know, which is a bummer. I've heard they're hard to grow, but if you can manage it? Share your secrets with the world, honestly, we need more of this plant in our lives.

Common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) is honestly just a classic. I love the light pink of the flowers, and those leaves are huge! I've heard they spread like wildfire, but with clusters of blooms like this? How can you even be too mad about that?

Showy milkweed (Asclepias speciosa). Honestly I'm not going to pretend I was always crazy about this species, but the more I see it pop up on iNaturalist, the more I find myself growing fond of it. These flowers look like crazy fireworks, and honestly, kinda have to stan.

"Oh, Ani, you have so many lovely favorites! Do you have any least favorite--" Tropical milkweed, hands down. I appreciate it's value as more of a 'babys first milkweed' plant but I'm tired of seeing it everywhere, especially knowing it's a bit invasive in my area?

Anyways, these are some of my favorite milkweed species! What are some of yours?

[rebornologist]

I'm back! Delivering what I promised, just a few thoughts. Enjoy xx

୨୧ ⁺˳₊ pomegranate tea; at what point did they know they loved their s/o? ✧ characters: Giotto, Daemon Spade warnings: mentions of Daemon's willingness to do anything for his s/o

♡ Giotto knew that he loved his s/o when he wanted to marry them. He’s not a traditional man  by any sense, but he was quite formal in courting them, and is traditional in this one aspect of his life—wanting to live the rest of his life deeply intertwined with his s/o, and maybe even have a family down the line.. not just the mafia kind.

Giotto seemed a bit stressed lately. He's overworked, as usual, and not particularly sunny, which was a bummer, because the spring wildflowers were in full bloom.

୨୧ ˳⁺✧

The radio plays quietly as the two of you drive out to your favorite picnic spot. Despite everything, he makes time for you. You appreciate every minute with him because of it. The silent is cut by the sweet sound of his voice.

“Hypothetically, when do you think is a good time to get married?”

You blink, wide eyes pausing your leisure activity of taking in the beautiful gardens you were currently being driven through.

"Par..don..?" You turn your head around to see your partner's stoic face still facing the road.

He chuckles lightly, "oh.. is it.. too early to ask? Even hypothetically-"

"No, no, it's not too early for us to be talking about this kind of thing," you insist, shifting fully in your seat to face him. "You aren't asking because you're going to propose to me on our picnic, right?"

He blinks, once, twice. You stifle a giggle at his blank expression. He's as readable as ever, he didn't plan on it, he didn't even think of it. He might steal that idea for the future, though.

♡ Daemon Spade knew that he loved his s/o when he felt completely under their spell—something not common for a man like him, it’s usually the other way around. He went to sleep every night with the realization gnawing at his insides, growing, practically festering, knowing that he would absolutely kill and die for them.

Your partner is not a peaceful sleeper, and often lies awake in the middle of the night next to you. He does not usually sleep well, but at least he doesn't get as many nightmares when he's with you. You've recently begin to wonder what your significant other is up to when you're asleep and he is awake. Even more when you are asleep and he is not even by your side.

୨୧ ˳⁺✧

"Daemon-"

"Yes, precious thing?" He answers without missing a beat. The two of you were getting ready for a dinner party. You enjoyed going out with him, meeting all types of people in every sphere of life and observing your enigmatic boyfriend in some pretty strange social situations.

You snort quietly, amused at his quick response.

"Have you ever killed for me?"

He pauses, expression unreadable. "Isn't the question usually, would you..." he turns to gaze curiously at his lover, who is currently shrugging a long coat on over their evening attire. You adjust their hair casually, looking into the large vanity mirror in front of you.

"I know the answer to that already. Whether you've done it yet, is the question," you make eye contact with him in the reflection. He feels an indescribable tightness in his chest.

"If you were aware of the former matter, I can guarantee.. you already know the latter," he sighs, wondering what magic string of fate brought him to such an otherworldly being.

I don't love DS at all, and I find 1st gen really difficult to write for, but I'm fascinated by the concept of Daemon Spade, or any of the immoral, downright nasty characters, with a partner that are also mysterious and morally grey. Not a common ship dynamic to fight angst and evil w/ more angst and evil.

[sha-brytols]

for the inquisitor!

5. What was the Herald of Andraste's opinion about the Chantry and the war before the explosion?

14. What type of Inquisitor are they? What are their motivations? How do they lead?

20. What does the Inquisitor think about Hawke?

YEAHHHH thank you ❤️ doing elnora for this

Inquisitor Ask Game

5. What was the Herald of Andraste's opinion about the Chantry and the war before the explosion?

The Chantry as, like, an institution? Sucks major farts no thank you 🙅‍♀️🙅‍♀️ But she's fascinated by the Chant of Light itself and the story of Andraste and the Maker and has a lot of admiration for the message of hope it expresses. As for the war, my headcanon was actually that Clan Lavellan is a sanctuary clan for Dalish mages that were cast out by their clans (my way of trying to figure out how the hell that retcon makes any gotdam sense) so naturally the war affected their lives a lot. The rogue Templars targeted them a lot and Elnora ended up being one of the few non-mage hunters in the clan and was on the front lines against them when they ambushed, so she has a very fucking poor opinion of them LMAO

14. What type of Inquisitor are they? What are their motivations? How do they lead?

She's a faithful Inquisitor if you can believe it. She's a lot like Ameridan in that she believes in both the Maker and the Creators (this was before i played that dlc if you can fucking believe it) and she especially feels a lot of admiration towards Andraste specifically as the woman who nearly took down Tevinter and helped freed the elves all while preaching hope and faith and community, so when everyone's like "yooo Andraste chose you" Elnora was like omg YAY and went with it. Her motivation is basically to follow in Andraste and Mythal's footsteps as one. Make a better future, protect the weak, strike down injustice, and never let go of the people you love.

As for how she leads she needs Cassandra at her side at literally all times or she's fucking helpless

20. What does the Inquisitor think about Hawke?

DEPRESSING LOL. Elnora LOVES heroic tales and ballads and things like that so when Varric was like "hey meet my best friend Hawke ^_^" she was ecstatic. And then it turned out Varric embellished a lot of details regarding her personality because this woman is a fucking bummer to be around. I think at first Elnora was really put off by Esther just because she's fucking MEAN. Like actually just a nightmare to talk to. Hang on I even rewrote their interaction about Anders where Esther just greyrocks her LOL

After awhile of traveling together though Elnora's opinion flips and she just kind of feels bad for her. Like she just seems so weary. I like to think of Here Lies the Abyss as like, a cautionary tale to the Inquisitor on the realities of being a living legend. Hawke is a statement on how you can try as much as you possibly can and fight tooth and nail at every turn and still fail, so Elnora ultimately ends up admiring Hawke for how she still manages to go on despite her shit life.

[catchyhuh]

Z. ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE?

NO none of them would hide a zombie bite. yes, they are all not super great people and certainly nobody the average motherfucker would want to be stuck with during the end of the world but they aren’t THAT selfish!

these are kind of more of a bummer than i expected/intended umm i don't think they need any. tws or anything but just. general warning. WARNING: kind of a bummer

lupin:

does not entirely take the reality of the situation seriously at first. i know sometimes i lean too much into silly unbothered-by-it-all lupin, but really, in this situation, he’s going to be so disbelieving in the initial stages that he’d waltz up to one, go “wow! the makeup department is even better this time around!” and nearly get his pinky finger bitten off. THEN he locks down

still a bit more reckless than he should be, but that’s just because honestly he has the skills to back him up. he’s like sitting on top of a building with his legs dangling over the edge, a pack of zombies under him just BARELY missing his dinky little shoes, and when jigen comes over and goes DUDE he’s like WHAT? WHAT’RE THEY GONNA DO

if it’s taking any mental toll on him, beyond the, y’know, WILD AMOUNT OF DEATH AND DECAY SURROUNDING THEM, it’s very muted. his pleasant attitude isn’t really a fabrication, but beyond that, lupin never really lets himself linger on “who could’ve been saved” for his own sanity. there’s always a few examples that hit, not including the times he’s thought his friends have died (but he’s also strangely passive and accepting about their death while grieving in those situations too BUT THAT’S FOR ANOTHER TIME) but more than the weird, isolated feeling an apocalypse brings, if anything is going to keep him up for an hour or two longer than usual once a week, it’s going to be the amount of people disappearing

jigen:

very much the most blunt about it as he is with most things. what this really means though is, while all of them would stare at you flatly if you tried to call them anything BUT zombies, jigen is the only one who will actually lean his head back, his hands covering his face, and groan, “oh my fucking god”

jigen is already a bit of a… kind of “made his peace with it” nihilist, compared to the others. jigen was never into this great cool thief thing because it would get his name in really, this isn’t going to change things up for him too much, as he only really likes less than ten people on planet earth total, most of which he never sees anyway, he’s not really tied down to one spot, he doesn’t seem too bothered with chilling out by himself for a bit, he keeps watch when the others are sleeping anyways, REALLY, THIS ALL LINES UP WITH HIS RESUME PRETTY WELL

REALLY ALL THINGS CONSIDERED A ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE GOES ABOUT AS WELL AS IT POSSIBLY CAN FOR A GUY LIKE HIM. even beyond taking the above into account, he’s. the gun guy. he knows how to use almost every kind of gun. the primary, most effective way to take out zombies. like jeez man he’d just be coasting through this

the only thing that could really make this have an effect on him is if one of the others got infected. he’d act irrationally, for once, maybe try to hide them away and figure out where some kinda cure was coming, but if it really was too late, he’d be just as capable of the mercy gunshot to the headTHESE ARE SUCH CHEERFUL HCS

fujiko:

my man this woman is just numb past a point. you think a zombie apocalypse is changing her tuesday plans? well, maybe it will a little, granted that the restaurant she was planning to go to caught fire and exploded but um. MENTALLY, EMOTIONALLY, it’s whatever! like on any given day, her only concern outside of herself is lupin n the gang, because deep down she enjoys the company of these weirdos, and more than that, what’s more miserable than attempting to survive a zombie apocalypse? surviving it by YOURSELF

not to reduce the Girl One to the Girl Traits (god knows tms does that enough!) but joking aside her first response is definitely a muted “eugh. gross.” like let’s be honest everyone is thinking it when they see a guy who’s jaw is hanging off the tendon but only fujiko can say what everybody’s thinking, smelling that rotten skin and just seeing the state of the environment and corpses walkin about. and that thing is “Yuck.”

the whole “self-serving cool one woman band” thing doesn’t totally work in a societal collapse unfortunately, but it does add a necessary layer of realism to the situation. fujiko isn’t hiding a bite. NOT THAT SHE’D MANAGE TO GET BIT LMAO but in the event of she would just look at it, like on her arm, pause, and hold it out for the others to see. no point pretending nothing’s wrong and if the shoe was on the other foot she’d rip a guy limb from limb if they didn’t disclose that information lol

goemon:

somebody is going to have to get used to long range combat really fucking quickly because otherwise things are going to get bad INCREDIBLY FAST. he’s likely never going to pick up a gun even in a situation like this, but maybe he’ll take up throwing axes or some shit. maybe some robin hood shit? anything to stay loyal to the grind

this might be the thing it takes to make goemon really, truly break out of his shell. ISN’T THAT INSANE TO SAY and make no mistake, it’s not a complete 180 on the goemon we know and love, nothing that’d make the others turn around and look him over like ‘what. thing has possessed you’, but suddenly you start to become more talkative and less ambiguous when you realize this could genuinely be the last time you see your best friend. 

yknow what though. those “my grandma said xyz helps with the flu” remedies would probably be pretty damn helpful in this situation. but make no mistake goemon’s first course of action is “raid a walgreens” and THEN we can move onto “mint helps with nausea.” seriously though it really does and i have to imagine 90% of people would be pretty damn nauseous being surrounded by the grossness of a situation like this! get a nice mug get some mint tea and then get to sippin!

hey. not to bring up the sword twice but can zantetsuken-fueled amputation stop the spread of a zombie bite infection. let’s find out! it’d be such a precise, clean job too, very reliable. actually can you fucking imagine being the other person in that situation, getting your arm cut off in a zombie apocalypse, and then the guy calls it “a worthless object.” i’d hop off the table and start shouting

zenigata:

i know i said all of them are assholes and yes this includes him but being completely transparent he’s GOING to die protecting somebody if nobody stops him. you ever see that bit in alcatraz connection where he tells lupin to shoot him through the heart point blank just because it will ALSO take down the bad guy who was holding him captive? you see the way he panics and throws himself in front of just anything when he sees somebody even SLIGHTLY weaker in danger? oh he’s going to die BUT NOT IF OUR OTHER GUYS HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT IT! BECAUSE LET’S BE HONEST HE IS VALUABLE

he can make all those trinkets and shit, he’s a medical miracle, his voice carries from across HUGE distances, he has an incredible talent for showing up in places he should not at all be able to get into somehow-- there’s lots of plausible deniability to “why did you guys show up” without any of the four flatout admitting that they kind of like him sometimes :) 

again we are locking the FUCK down. you ever marathon part 2 and then get randomly hit with sudden excruciatingly serious zeni. okay imagine that that switch kind of busted and now rather than that being the exception, goofy zeni is the new rare sighting. i know, i know, truly i’m forcing you to imagine dark times. but really man i’m serious if the gang or yata doesn’t get a grip on him first he’s GOING to DIE

anyway speaking of our guy i was going to include yata too and then realized he doesn’t deserve the misery i accidentally placed on these guys. I JUST LIKE ZOMBIE MOVIES I DIDN’T MEAN FOR THIS TO GO SO SOMBER I PROMI

[ideas-on-paper]

Real Boy ending, Golden Lie & NG+ death counter

(Nothing special, just a few final comments on my NG+ playthrough)

[MAJOR Spoilers for Lies of P]

When Geppetto calls Pino a puppet after you give him the heart:

It was at this moment that Pino knew: He fucked up.

(It does confirm that Geppetto sees P merely as a puppet though - when he is talking to "his son", he is really talking to Carlo's heart.)

But hey! I finished my second Lies of P playthrough! Wohooo!!!

It's a bit of a bummer that I wasn't able to get the Golden Lie in this playthrough either though, despite technically having more humanity points than the last time. (Also, if I ever do a third run, I'm gonna go for the Free from the Puppet String ending, so I won't get it then either.)

However, I think I may have an idea what the reason for this is: As far as I can tell, the pop-up message "Your heart is pounding" only is displayed after you gave Sophia peace. I only got it two times in my first playthrough, after listening to the last two records, which wasn't quite enough to unlock the Golden Lie. However, even at the point when I long should've exceeded the humanity points necessary for it, I only got "You feel warmth" in my second playthrough. This is because I chose to let Sophia live the second time around, for roleplaying reasons. I was playing a Pinocchio who lied on every possible occasion, but who didn't have the heart to kill any person he was close to. (The cruel irony being, due to his inability to see any evil in his beloved father, he ultimately ended up killing all the people he cared about.)

So, if you want to get the Golden Lie, you have to give Sophia peace. I thought the choice with Sophia only affected the ending, but apparently not.

As a result, I had never seen the description of the Golden Lie before, so I googled it. And, as with so many items, it actually contains lore-relevant information:

"There are two kinds of lies. Yours is the lie that makes your nose long." The boy loved the fairy tale about the wooden puppet's adventure. At least the wooden puppet's father was kind.

Since I wasn't aware of this, I had assumed the fairy tale of Pinocchio being Carlo's favorite book was just a really good fan theory, but this pretty much confirms it. Also, judging by the wistful remark "at least the wooden puppet's father was kind", I think Carlo's heartfelt wish was just that Geppetto would love and appreciate him, deep down.

Last but not least, I'm pretty proud of myself that I finished the game with just 16 deaths in total, 9 of which were from boss fights - discounting the Nameless Puppet of course, since I didn't fight it in my second run. (Once again, I did the boss fights without Specter for my own fun, since they're a bit too easy for my taste otherwise.)

I'm actually sort of curious: Has anyone else managed to beat the game with less than 20 deaths? (I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if there are pro gamers who can finish the game with below 10 deaths, but just out of curiosity. ^^)

[xplrvibes]

Hello!! I have a few topics i want to get into today but first i hope you’ve been having a happy and safe holiday season! Also in response to your response to my anon where you said about the voice lady of new jersey boardwalk suing them… i love hearing stuff like that and i thought that was so interesting. okay now onto my other thoughts:

Ever since the doll video dropped I’ve been thinking about how prior to that video there were a lot of people begging snc to upload more (I’m assuming this has been a problem for awhile I just very rarely dip into the snc fandom outside of tumblr) and how it’s probably a good thing they haven’t uploaded more videos. At the rate Sam has been going with this demonic stuff he and the fans should be grateful he hasn’t been sent to superhell yet. I guess he would have to profess his love to Colby for that to happen though… 🤷‍♀️

The react channel video gave me nothing. Your response on it about it being exactly what you expected is very real. i watched it last night before bed and i should have just went to sleep (holiday shopping is left me exhausted i could have used that extra 20 minutes today.) I guess it’s all water under the bridge between the two of them which is fine because i wanted them to save their friendship (obviously) but i just really hope sam sticks to what he says and starts being more careful. i’m curious to see what this next year of content is going to look like for them because this years videos were okay enough but most of them wouldn’t rank very high in my favorites of their videos. I think their tfil videos were what really got me into them because those videos were so fun (i say as i haven’t watched them in years, they could have aged badly to be fair) and i love travel content anyway. it would help break up the monotony which i think is good for everyone right now.

Nothing makes me angry quite like fandoms who hate a guy’s girlfriend. this is why i’m mostly involved in fandoms for women/women fronted stuff because then i can avoid most of that drama. 🤷‍♀️ i agree though colby’s instagram is soooo much tamer than it used to be. (i think there’s a deeper conversation to be had about that considering i know he was struggling with his body image due to his cancer but that’s for another time). I remember he used to post shirtless photos in the pool at the og trap house all the time and the one standout image i remember that felt like a jump scare when it was posted was during the second trap house era and they posted that picture with their bare asses out. 💀

on that note i bid you good night! (i say as i’m going to be up for a few more hours)

-broccoli 🥦 anon

Howdy! Happy holidays to you, too!

Ok, first of all, hats off to you for the Destiel/Solby comparison. 🤣

But yes, honestly, I don't think they have it in them to be making more content - not just the amount of time it takes to edit this (and considering Colby is still doing all of the cutting of footage on top of everything else he has going on, there is no way they can get that shit finished any quicker than they are), but the time spent traveling to these places to film and then the time they have to spend decompressing afterwards.

Add into the mix Sam's increasingly unhinged need to prove the paranormal and you've got a recipe for disaster if they started trying to do more than they're already doing.

And for the record - I don't believe for a second that he's changing his ways, which is probably why it's safer for them to distance themselves from the paranormal for a bit lol.

TFIL was what got me into them too, which is kind of a bummer because now I just can't deal with Elton or Corey anymore so it's just so hard to go back and watch that stuff now (and you're right, it probably aged like spoiled milk lol) but I would love to see a return to travel content, or docu-series like Chernobyl. But, we shall see!

Everytime people start clutching their pearls about Colby and Malia's posts, I fondly remember the time the boys all posted their entire asses on the gram, or the time snc streaked completely naked through their alleyway to celebrate hitting 6 million (?) and I just wonder: did everyone get more prudish in general, or is it just a woman's body they have a problem with?

Cause I've definitely seen more of Colby's skin than I've seen of Malia's lol.

Anyway, it's a shame that everu fandom has that one guy that nobody will accept being in a relationship because the fans think they collectively own that man...but Colby is clearly over worrying or caring whatsoever about any of that and his "give no fucks" attitude has given me quite a bit of entertainment this year, so we've got that going for us 🤣.

Have a great night!

[bugeyedfreaks]

1-12 Femme Fatale XD

okey dokey let's do thissssss

1. Why do you like or dislike this character?

I am very neutral on Femme (but leaning towards like!) because, on one hand, I do enjoy the episode that she was in, and I think she was a really fun and unique character, but on the other hand... I mean, it's hard to do much of anything else with her except have her be cranky and misandrist. ☹️ That coupled with the fact that she's, like, one of three female villains in the show is a bit of a bummer.

2. Favorite canon thing about this character?

She would probably hate me saying this, but her outfit is fire and her hair is beautiful. I'm honestly very jealous she can pull that whole look off (even though she apparently stole it... I mean she did it very well!).

3. Least favorite canon thing about this character?

She was just in one episode! 😩 It's like how it bums me out that Sedusa was in, like, what... only three? Poor ladies.

4. If you could put this character in any other media, be it a book, a movie, anything, what would you put them in?

I dunno, but boy, it would really be interesting to see if they'd even consider bringing her back in any other potential reboots that might pop up... 👀

5. What's the first song that comes to mind when you think about them?

6. What's something you have in common with this character?

There have been occasions where I have cursed the entire population of men under my breath (but, hey, I think that's the sort of thing everyone's guilty of at one point or another, we aren't all perfect). Unlike her though, it's definitely not something that's seriously integrated into my belief system like it is in hers.

...I think we also totally agree that Townsville needs more cool lady villains. 🤣

7. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like?

...does the fandom really do a lot with her, really? I have seen some really cool fanart/cosplay of her, and I've read a few funny little fanfics she's starred in that were pretty good.

8. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

Maybe underutilizing her? The problem is that she's in an episode that's... well, it's not super controversial or anything, but like I said in my first answer, she just kind of gets pigeonholed into a certain role by the nature of her villain concept. I think a lot of people also misrepresent the episode that she's in and kind of say it's about things that it's not. The world is definitely made up of more shades of gray than in a cartoon show about kindergarteners who fight, but there's still some good stuff you can take away from Equal Fights.

9. Could you be roommates with this character?

I do not think that would work out because she'd probably keep pulling stuff like... continuously missing rent and having some huge sob story about how it was the patriarchy's fault that she couldn't pay it, since that's her usual over-the-top MO in her episode. Left dirty dishes in the sink? "Oh, you want me to clean them up like some submissive 50s housewife?!" Trashed up the bathroom? "Well, be grateful I didn't leave the seat up like some man!" I think I would cry.

10. Could you be best friends with this character?

[imagines the arguments the two of us would most likely get into ten seconds into even meeting each other] ...probably not.

11. Would you date this character?

If I wanted to have one of the most toxic relationships of my life? Yeah, sure. Otherwise, heck no!

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character?

That she and Sedusa are frenemies with a fun-filled but ullllltra toxic relationship where they occasionally go on crime sprees with one another (maybe letting Princess Morbucks tag along now and then) and also argue about the best ways to take advantage of all those idiotic men in Townsville. 😆

[sammysdewysensitiveeyes]

12, 15 (I think I know this one but here's you're chance to wax poetic), 20 (can't be pyro), & 21 for avalanche!

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character?

Since I have already posted a ton of headcanons for Pyro over the years, I'm giving this question to Morph from TAS. Exiles Morph was born with his X-gene activated (basically appeared as a white blobby vaguely human-shaped baby) and also lost his mother to cancer at around 13 or so. Since TAS Morph seems less powerful than Exiles Morph, I tend to assume they were born "normal" and developed powers later, but I consider the dead mother to be part of their backstory. So, my headcanon is that the first thing TAS Morph ever shapeshifted into was their mother - shortly after the funeral, when they were desperately missing her and wishing they could see her again. It completely freaked them out, and it took a little while for them to go, "Oh, I'm a mutant and also shape-shifting can be fun." But if any X-Man ever asks Morph how they discovered their powers, they always give a wacky joke answer because the truth is kind of a bummer and they don't want to get into all that, not to mention all the weird Freudian implications. (Of course, X-Men 97 might completely negate this headcanon.)

15. What's your favorite ship for this character? (Doesn't matter if it's canon or not.)

You're right, you know it's gonna be Pyro and Avalanche. Honestly, I just love the contrast of (relatively) serious, stoic, less chatty guy with excitable, extroverted gregarious guy (not mention the big guy/skinny guy aesthetic). I think Pyro is constantly dragging Avalanche out to DO things, and Avalanche (mostly) enjoys it. And the way those two have been together for so long, through thick and thin, Avalanche going with Pyro to the Savage Land to try to find a Legacy Virus cure even though he's not infected and there's no personal benefit for him. I can't imagine Avalanche going to such great lengths for anyone else. Like even in canon they are bros, even if the comics won't let them bang. From their very first introduction you see them having each other's backs and not really fighting with each other the way they both occasionally fight with Blob. And, much like Mystique and Destiny or Blob and Unus (or Black Tom and Juggernaut), I just love the idea of two criminals in love.

20. Which other character is the ideal best friend for this character, the amount of screentime they share doesn't matter?

For Not Pyro. Hmmm.....I'll say that I think Toad should be good friends with Blob, because they have both been on the same team (a few times), both have mutations that make them "ugly" in the eyes of most people, and are treated badly because of it. They've both been through some shit. And I think Freddy's general attitude of "Fuck you, I am who I am, and I'm okay with it," might help Morty deal with some of his own issues. Freddy doesn't really take any shit from anyone, and seems comfortable with himself in general, while Toad is always full of self-loathing.

But since Toad is currently part of the Exiles, I kinda hope he manages to bond with some of them. Third Eye at least reached out to him. Let Toad have some friends.

21. If you're a fic writer and have written for this character, what's your favorite thing to do when you're writing for this character? What's something you don't like?

For Avalanche - much like with Blob (or Pyro) I want to give him some internal complexity and not just write him as a dumb, violent criminal, even though all three of them often are in the comics. And filling in his backstory, of course, dude has been in comics for decades and we know almost nothing about him, even his supposed "wife." One of my headcanons is that he grew up in a large family as one of the older kids and therefore knows a lot about dealing with children because he was expected to help look after his siblings. Put him in a situation with a crying baby, and he will automatically take charge, whether he actually wants to or not, he just jumps into the role of "I guess someone has to deal with this." He has a love-hate relationship with his family, he hated all the expectations and responsibilities placed on him, but he misses the sense of community, and having a place where he "belonged." He also probably got kicked out for being a mutant.

What I don't like in fic - how the popularity of "Lance Alvers" from X-Men evolution has completely overshadowed Dominikos, and any fic with Avalanche in it will likely be Lance. Much like movie Pyro John Allerdyce has mostly overshadowed comics Pyro in fandom. And I actually like the adapted versions, sullen bad boy American teens Lance Alvers and John Allerdyce are both interesting characters. But they definitely are very different from their comics counterparts, Lance is basically just Rictor in all but name, and it's made it hard to find any fan works for the original versions of the characters.

[ikamigami]

It's a rant post so if you don't want to read it just scroll past it.

Okay, I don't like how Earth is written. She feels like one-dimensional character and she's been in these shows for a whole year..

I expected more from her. Some kind of character development, I guess..

I get it that she's kind and understanding and that's good.. but where are her flaws?

Every character made few mistakes or a lot of mistakes but for some reason Earth is perfect..?

I thought that maybe for the sake of her own mental health she's trying to not see that something might be wrong with her siblings..

But apparently she's never wrong ughh I get it..

I was happy at first that Earth is trying to help Eclipse but now it's just meh to me.. mostly because she's always like that without any struggles..

The only person she hates is Ruin but who doesn't hate Ruin? (I know that there are fans of him but I hope that y'all get what I mean)

Like.. if she tried to help Ruin despite hating him ooo that would be something or if she admitted that she might be a little bit selfish (not evil pls) cause it's okay.. It's okay to have flaws. It's okay to be wrong.

To me Earth doesn't seem to struggle with anything. Ofc I'm not saying that she's completely okay because she isn't - her father turned out to be evil and he abandoned her, she experienced loss of a close friend and brother, she wants to help her family as best as she can but she clearly struggles with low self-esteem.. but beside that there's nothing.

I'd like if show gave her more depth because I thought that things she went through so far will have an impact on her..

I can be wrong though but then again why so many people try to tell me what I should think about characters and what's happening in the show or how I should feel about all of this?

I just feel that whenever she's on screen everyone revolves around her and show seems to tell us "hey stop not liking Earth".. like it often times feels like a commentary from VAs themselves rather than what characters truly think..

She really gives me a Mary Sue vibes.. especially now when she's helping Eclipse to redeem himself..

And also it's my feelings on her character and my opinion so you can disagree with them.

I just sometimes feel like other fans just try to tell me "hey, you're watching and understanding this wrong" and it's a bummer..

It might be just a misunderstanding on my end or it might be caused by how often it actually happened to me that other fans (mostly on Discord) always tried to tell me how I should watch, interpret and feel about these shows, characters and what's happening there..

[everygame]

Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story

Developed/Published by: Jeff Minter, Digital Eclipse / Digital Eclipse Released: 13/04/2024 Completed: n/a Completion: Played and viewed all of “The Early Years” and part way through "The Hairy Years" and still digging into the rest of it.

I know, I can’t believe it either. Every Game I’ve Finished topical for two weeks and even posting a write up of a game on its day of release (well, for supporters, anyway). It’s like I’m a games journalist again (spit).

I was hugely excited for this after enjoying what I’ve played of Atari 50 (better than those flashback collections!) and The Making of Karateka, and although this is absolutely, 100% not what I would choose to put out if I was attempting to be commercial after The Making of Karateka, I’ve gotta say… fair play to them. Though they’re pretty much nailing their flag in the terrain that says the Gold Master Series is not so much The Criterion Collection of games as it is like… Vinegar Syndrome or something. I mean there’s nothing wrong with that! Someone’s gotta put out deluxe versions of Bruno Mattei films [checks notes] oh hang on, no.

(To be fair, it’s actually a lot more like my buddy Justin’s boutique label Gold Ninja Video, which actually does insane work to put out work by filmmakers who should absolutely be known better.)

Anyway. They say there’s a stonking 42 games on this, but that’s a slight exaggeration because there’s technically on 33 different games with a few offering different versions based on system (Gridrunner, for example, is on VIC-20, C64, Atari 8-bit and as a remastered version) and most of the games are pre-1985 so there’s a lot of stuff here that’s really only going to be of interest if you like diving into some very dusty cupboards. This is something I honestly enjoy very much, so I loved pulling out a VIC-20 game and trying to make sense of it, but for many, I assume, the main draw here is the fact that it’s a proper re-release of his beloved Tempest 2000, a well that Minter has been back to a bunch of times–I loved TxK to pieces. It’s a slight bummer that this doesn’t re-release Minter’s more recent games which have been delisted like the iOS “Minotaur Project” (of which only a couple of games have been re-released as Minotaur Arcade.) However, it seems pretty obvious that would be a ton of fucking work to port, as would, say, getting a Nuon emulator up to spec so people could play Tempest 3000, so that's... fine.

(There’s also no Defender 2000, but that’s rights issues, and as far as I remember people don’t think that’s any great shakes.)

Presentation-wise, you know what to expect with this release, the same wrapper as in Atari 50 and The Making of Karateka with some different colours and music. This is fine! I think I’ve settled into this three releases in. You get a ton of interesting images, details, and box art to look at, though I still have issues with the layout of the documentary/museum (I can't remember which terminology Digital Eclipse would prefer.) I have small quibbles: in “The Early Years” if you go through it in order you play a version of Bomber on ZX Spectrum before they introduce the system into the narrative (admittedly the kind of thing you won't spot unless you're brutally anal on these kind of things like myself.) Then the final video you watch recaps everything you’ve just learned in a way that makes you feel like it should either have come first, or been split up into more videos. 

But I’d argue there’s deeper structural issues if you’re really trying to get people excited about video game history, and I again place it at the decision to go pure chronological* (as I did in The Making of Karateka.) If you play each game as you go, you’ll play a series of games so old and so ropey that you have to already be interested in this story to see it out. If you don’t know why you should care about Jeff Minter, I’m sorry, but a video of some talking heads and then immediately playing 3D3D, a baffling and slow first person maze game for ZX81 that has literally no analogue in the entire rest of his career is… not going to help! And I have to again bang on that I feel they just don’t place the games in enough context of the wider games industry at the time.

(*There's a quirk in that it's not exactly chronological, because all the Atari 8-bit ports are later in the documentary, which is a bit weird when you, for example, play two versions of Gridrunner and then the Atari 8-bit version several games later. I'm unclear on the exact reason if it, and if you're going to be even that irreverent, feels like you might want to just wildly reorder the whole thing for the audience anyway.)

I think Digital Eclipse’s counter overall would be that I probably want something more verbose and detailed which wouldn’t be as accessible, which isn't wrong. They might even argue that I'm basing my criticism on a hypothetical consumer who isn't even their intended audience! It's a hard line to ride, but I’d still argue that there’s a sense for storytelling in the curation here that’s missing--and I really don't want them to limit their audience because as critical as I might be, I love this series already and I want it to go on forever.

So yes, this is still the exact kind of thing I want to be released and if it’s opening up people to learning more about Jeff Minter and Llamasoft on their own time then I think it’s brilliant. I just think that anyone who picks this up who isn't already steeped in this era needs to be a bit forgiving and skip past all the ropey old games after looking at them for a couple of minutes tops and just enjoy reading the text and watching the videos until they get to the good stuff, so consider this fair warning before you buy it (because you should buy it.)

I mean if you only want this to play Tempest 2000 (and Llamatron 2112, actually) there’s nowt wrong with that, and that’s already worth the money.

Will I ever play it again? I’m still working through it!

Final Thought: I will, of course, be playing every game on this, and although I won’t be giving every Llamasoft release a full post, I have at least started with a write-up of each of the games in "The Early Years", as an introduction to the kind of things you’d be playing if you pick this up (and which sadly explains why you probably won’t want to play most of them... it gets better by the time you get to The Hairy Years, and significantly). If you want to read it, it's a supporter-only post over at my ko-fi. I suppose saying that makes my usual please subscribe stinger a bit pointless but let's hammer the point home why not. Support Every Game I’ve Finished on ko-fi! You can pick up a digital copy of exp. 2600, a zine featuring all-exclusive writing at my shop, or join as a supporter at just $1 a month and get articles like this a week early.