#actually i just googled it and i thought they were a lot more than 150 tbh

[compacflt]

ice and his obnoxious ass academy ring are my fav part of TG 86'

does your mav have any thoughts ab his husband wearing that damn ring

he’s probably still a little bitter about it but it’s not like ice SHOULDNT be proud of going to the USNA or anything so what is he gonna do, ask him to take it off??

i have this image ive yet to incorporate into any of my writing where ice spends his whole life with the USNA ring on the fourth finger of his right hand & feels a little imbalanced. something’s missing. & then he marries maverick, and he has the wedding ring on the fourth finger of his left hand, and finally he is complete. he has both. he is both a great officer and someone capable of love. neither side is subservient to the other anymore. they coexist in harmony at the end of the day. and of course that’s something maverick would respect.

oh shit brb adding that image to my slider one-shot rn

[beachback]

Hi there buddy, my name is Athena. I'm coming to say hi, see how you're doing and this is a chance to ramble about your wips. What's the biggest wordcount you've ever achieved on a wip?

Sorry I haven't gotten around to this yet I've been a bit busy D:

I've made quite a bit of stories, but the ones that I qualify as wips were the ones I got more serious about. So I have a bunch of untitled documents with one to ten pages of beginning a story, only to never work on it again xD

So then as for that, I've only had about five serious wips --- four after quarantine hit and I decided to try being a writer, and one before when I was simply dilly dallying in the art. xD

My first wip in quarantine (titled "Paodd Scrunch", a keyboard smash name plus the version where I stopped adding spaces after every paragraph) was me trying to seriously write, but looking back I know how many mistakes I made, not just within the project but how I set the project up. It was a story 100 years after an apocalyptic virus, containing zombies, shape shifters, and made-up human-like creatures that were bodies of whizzing mass/energy.

I wrote almost every night with really mostly just emotions to guide me. This meant that the plot? Nowhere to be found. It was all character relations and conflicts charged with emotions and toxic, but also confusing behaviors, since I would forget what the character's theme, internal conflicts, and desires were supposed to be like 😭.

But I did have a lot of fun watching book tube, book reviews, writing tips, and writing commentary videos. I really had a blast in quarantine having so much time to learn. In the end I wrote two books of it, although in the second one I only summarized the last 150 pages of. But all together it hit about 121k words in nine months (I titled the final document "The Big Boy: Large Paodd Scrunch") So that's my biggest word count! :0

My next wip was titled "NEVER FALL IN LOVE IN THE OCEAN" and was also focused primarily on character relations and conflicts amongst each other. The main character was trapped on a floating, planked island in the middle of the ocean, with other characters who had a deal to say about her and their own internal conflicts and behaviors. I wrote the climax during the plane and decided I hated it. I didn't like what it led up to. So I tried rewriting everything, the whole thing multiple times. I never found the solution. So I decided to put the draft aside, and see if I could find a better solution a few months or years down the line. In the end I reached 57k in about five months.

My next draft was about Grace, a Fragmented beast that had a great amount of power and was put in an education/facility for it, and Luna, a new scout who needed a Guardsman for her journey. This started out as a comic, but I soon decided to develop it novel-wise. I enjoyed working on this one a lot, but as I continued writing it, once again I felt that the plot was not thought out, and it felt like it didn't lead to much. Once again I was disappointed, having not planned much of the plot but more of the premise, and wanting to work on character relations more than plot, that I tried rewriting it again to add more story. This only lasted a few pages, and I was losing motivation from not understanding how I wanted the story to go. Once again I have put this draft aside, but I actually have looked at the first wip recently and I did like what I saw. Perhaps I will work on it again in the near future. In the end I have reached 28k words in two months.

My current wip is titled "The story of Cat Vegas" (actually it's "cat begas" on Google docs xDDD). It started out with me writing a short story about Jerry Cat and Serious Baby, the two toys I bought at an antique store and brought to school to show my friends. I really fell in love with their characters. Eventually I developed the world that they were in, and I decided to work on the lore, the landmarks, etc. for some mega world-building, but started again with simpler world-building based on an old Minecraft world of ours. Decided there wasn't enough plot, started again. This time I really worked on the plot, and how I wanted the story to end, working on it multiple times so I could feel satisfied with it. Feeling satisfied, I had started rewriting it in a thick journal, taking it with me wherever I go. I started it in June, and am still working on it. I have not transferred it to Google docs yet, so I have no clue how much the word count is. But I'm excited to see where the story is going!

[hasufin]

I mean, sort of?

The “cooler” color spectrum is definitely harsher.

But there are reasons behind this, and they’re not terrible.

Okay, let me start with something you might not have thought about: it takes a LOT of power to run streetlights. It’s not exactly obvious, but realize that each individual streetlight is putting out thousands - tens of thousands - of lumens. Each individual streetlight, which in the “old” version meant a single bulb (”lamp”) was putting out as much light as every lightbulb in your house combined. Along with every lightbulb in your neighbor’s houses, and... look, it’s a lot of light.And also (per a quick googling) each one is of those old-style bulbs draws as much as 600 watts in high power mode (I’ll get to that later). Point is, that adds up to a whooooole lot of power, which means they’re expensive to run.

In fact, for a long time the only vaguely economical way to put out that much light was sodium vapor lamps. You don’t get those at Home Depot. They’re thousands of dollars, and they’re heinously inconvenient: they take several minutes to come up to temperature. If you’re an Old like me, you remember back when the streetlights would slooooowly turn on.

Sodium vapor lamps also happen to run on two different power modes: The low power mode can go as low as 35 watts up to about 180 watts, while high power mode goes up to 600 watts. Now, realize, wattage maps directly to how much it costs to run the damned things. But, the higher power is also more efficient - low power bulbs only put out ~100 lumens (this is the measure of how much light you get) per watt, while high power can get as much as 150 lumens per watt. In other words, the high power lamps are way bright. But, since there’s a practical limit on how tall you can make a streetlight, this doesn’t typically mean you get high power streetlights that illuminate a wider area - they just make it brighter and you get a better color temperature. Color temperature describes the range of light produced. Time was, you could tell you were in a bad part of town because the city would run the street lights at lower power, so at night everything would have a sickly yellow cast and everything is dim, while better areas would be well-lit and not so yellowed. Either way, they’d still be in the “warmer” part of the spectrum, because that’s what you get with sodium vapor.

Enter LEDs.Now, LEDs are... funky beasts, actually. I built an LED circuit once - unlike traditional bulbs, LEDs don’t just operate on continuous power, they are actually flickering at all times. The trick is to make them flicker so fast it seems like constant light. Also, we’re constantly discovering different LED chemistries which give you different light outputs - there are LEDs which put out UV, or infrared. But, it’s not a thing we can tune. If you need a particular wavelength and no one has figured out an LED chemistry that does that, well, too bad. This is important because, the ones which make sense for streetlights are, well, a lot bluer than sodium vapor.

Now, at first blush LEDs are not really a big improvement over sodium vapor lamps - they run to somewhere between 40-110 lumens per watt. Which is head and shoulders better than incandescent, but at their best only moderately better than low power lamps. They’re cheaper, and they last as long, so there’s that, but it’s not a enormous savings. Not enough to justify replacement, right?

So why did we go blue? Well, LEDs have one enormous advantage over sodium vapor: they’re directional. Sodium vapor lamps put out light in all directions. Including, you know, up. Some streetlights are designed to reflect that down, but that’s only moderately successful. And many aren’t. That’s a whole bunch of wasted power, and a whole bunch of light pollution.

LEDs, though, being directional, they put all those lumens out in the direction they’re pointed. While the LED streetlights are only producing 120 lumens/watt compared to 150 lumens/watt, the usable amount of light they’re producing is effectively twice what you’d get for the same power draw. And it makes environmentalists and astronomers happy because it reduces light pollution.

The big downside, though? We really only have one color LED which is that efficient, works in those operating temperatures, and is economical to manufacture. Which means unless someone develops an LED with a different color which meets those other criteria - that’s the color we’re gonna get.

perhaps some will disagree, but i think the world got worse when we changed the colour of the night

[basicallyalways]

My mind is just a big jumbled mess

I've been having a hard time today specifically for some reason with feeling overwhelmed from all the thoughts in my head. I feel like I've been starting so many different projects lately that I can't finish anything. I wonder if this is why I'm happiest when I find a new obsession like a video game or something that I just can't stop thinking about or working on. Then that’s just one thing on the front-burner (is that an actual term? Lol) to deal with at one time. Otherwise I have like 4-20 things there at a time.

Since like 2015/2016, I've noticed how hard it is for me to think. It's kind of hard for me to explain it. But basically I get so overwhelmed all of the time. There are so many things I want to accomplish or buy or figure out and it's just so hard for me just sit down and get those things done. Some days are worse than others, like today. Like I just literally had to take a 5 minute break from writing this because I couldn't stop crying with how overwhelmed with thoughts I am and it's just reminding me how hard it truly is for me to be able to communicate and get my thoughts out so they're not clouding my brain. I still can't stop crying but I don't want to forget these thoughts when I do go back to try writing this down because I won't be able to remember all the things I'm thinking/feeling.

I have over 4,600 screenshots in my phone. I have way more in my Google Photos but I don’t know how to figure that number out. I take screenshots of things that I want to remember. You can see how this could be a problem because how am I going to even find these SS's if there are so many of them lost in my phone? And that’s not even taking into account all of the actual photos I have in my phone. It would be slightly easier if they were all of the same subject or even 2 or 3. But there's sooo many different things that I do this for. I'm not sure how many albums I have in either my phone or Google Photos app but I can guarantee there's at least over 100 in each. More examples are my YouTube Playlists and Pinterest Boards. I just counted at least 200 YouTube Playlists I've created. I didn’t feel like counting anymore but I'm sure that’s enough to visualize my point. And then add to the fact that each playlist probably has at least 100 videos. I started making them probably in like 2013. I should probably go back and clean out some of the stuff I don’t care about anymore but that's just one other thing to add to the problem I'm attempting to explain. Now let's look at my Pinterest account. I have about 150 Boards created on there, the most pins in one being about 500. I spend way less time on Pinterest because I forget about it a lot and there's less subjects on there than YT but that’s a good thing for my situation. Each Photo Album, Playlist, and Board was created to organize my thoughts, in a sense. To try to make it easier for me to find whatever I was interested in finding at the time. It does work for that but it also causes more issues for me in the sense that I then have to worry about where I saved something or where I should save something. And there's still so many of them that it’s overwhelming and depressing for me. Oh and I just remembered the fact that I have 3 different apps that I used to make lists. Ugh. I'm not even going to go into how many lists I make. Oh and let's not forget all of the tabs on my computer I constantly have open. I used to be known for being so organized. Like I literally used to want to make a career out of it when I was younger. I'm still kind of organized (at least more than some people) in a way but not in a helpful way.

For those of you who don't know my situation, I'm currently unemployed. I was taking Community College classes from 2010-2016 off and on. I stopped because I was having similar issues to what I just was talking about. I think part of why I had so much trouble was because I had eventually went into full online classes instead of going to class 2-3 days a week. But just in general, school is difficult for someone like me who has issues with feeling overwhelmed to the point of not being able to do anything from the weight of that feeling. I'm lucky that I didn’t start having these issues until after I graduated high school. In fact, I didn’t even realize I had anxiety or depression until my 2nd semester of college classes where I had to leave my math class in the middle of it to go cry in the bathroom. When I was working I was on medication so it wasn’t as difficult to function but I had some off days. Eventually I stopped going to my last job because I couldn’t take having panic attacks every day before work anymore.

I really hope one day I'll be able to clear my head and feel like I can function like a normal human being. Life would be easier if only I had more people in my life (other than my husband) who had a better grasp on this sort of thing and could coach me. I also hope that at least most of this post made any sense and helped you to understand me a little better. I know that I have a tendency to take days and sometimes week to respond to people's messages but this is one of the reasons why that happens.

[vicea]

dream merch discord recap (june 12, 2021) - disclaimer: i may have missed some things or mistakenly heard other things, apologies in advanced for that!

he has not played the new minecraft update

dream “knows” the date george is coming to florida but he’s not saying it :p

dream doesn’t have anyone muted on twitter

dream guesses his favorite disney princess is belle

sapnap has seen dream’s feet before

he’s not actually connor’s dad in the dsmp lore

dreamnap do not have nicknames for each other D:

dream likes olives but especially black olives

his mother makes homemade pickles

he doesn’t have a phone case

he has dropped his phone from his ear onto concrete in the parking lot before and the screen didn’t crack

dream has six fingers /j

he pours cereal first not milk when making cereal

dream calls sapnap nick most of the time :D

what’s your dream car? “idk the one that gets me to point A to point B consistently”

he finally fixed his sleep schedule, woke up at 8 am today

mrbeast owes dream a tesla because he never sent dream the audio file

dream is a very analytical person - he thinks with numbers/data

creativity is one his strengths that he is the most proud of

3 to 4 years ago, dream used to say george looks like shawn mendes a lot, now he doesn’t resemble him as much

patches is currently sleeping <3

swimming is very relaxing to dream, he swam the other day!

many houses in florida have pools than other places, even the cheapest houses in orlando have pools

dream has merchendise defects (misprints on merch) + milestone merch and he wants to give them away to those who live in orlando (probably to anyone but the event will be held in orlando) though he doesn’t want it to be a covid super-spreader thing so once you pick up your item you gotta dip. just all an idea though

he has been donating them to charity too though :)

dream has likely read Heroes of Olympus before a long time ago

he says that he’ll do a give away of his childhood books with his signature on it

he was obsessed with the series (Percy Jackson) 

he really liked the Alex Rider series

has all of Maximum Ride books, 39 clues books

has read the legend series, the twilight series, and the maze runner

has all/read of the harry potter books, divergent, eragon

he would read all the time, to the point he would read more than one book a day (a book worm he says)

dream had a goal to read 200 books in a year and he wind up reading about 150

he doesn’t want to call it a library but- growing up he had something like that that had 600 or 700 or more books in it (privileged he admits it)

he has not read a book since he started youtube (about 2 years)

dream has a folder called Book that has his own writing in it

word count: 76000 words for one of his stories 

another one he wrote 5 chapters of

he sounds very excited/embarrassed talking about the stories he wrote he’s so endearing

the very first paragraph of one of his stories (he was young when he wrote this) “What exactly is darkness? is it the lack of light? is it a pit of nothingness? ... your mind is full of darkness...” then he couldn’t continue.

the story is about a kid who wakes up in a cell and has no idea where he is with other people who are in the same situation

dream has a world building document

he has a sequel to the first book he has ever written

he found a query letter that he wrote because he wanted to get his book published- he finds it very funny

he’s calling himself a nerd but idk it’s kind of endearing

“as you can tell i’ve always been incredibly cool and not a nerd at all! ever.”

he cringes at his own old videos

dream took a lot of inspiration from witches and wizards by james patterson for writing

the story is written in a way where the main character is actually writing the story so you’re getting input from the main character during it. there’s a lot of sarcasm in it and it’s making dream laugh

very first person narrator

he feels like it’d be very cool if he were to publish his works he wrote when he was 16 on amazon or something but he probably never would because he’d have to read through all of it and it’s just embarrassing for him

dream used to video call sapnap fairly frequently- even before youtube

he strictly remembers, a very long time (at least 7 to 9 years) ago he was at his old childhood house he video called sapnap. he was wearing a (technically) suit and he remembers specifically that he was giving sap a tour... 

“snazzy in a suit”

he had no reason to put on the suit (wow time is a flat circle huh)

drista is pretty close to sapnap’s height, she’s like 5′7″ but sap is still taller than her

dream filmed the whole thing when he and sapnap met but... it’s... gone because when he was clipping that one clip for twitter... it edited the whole video

he’s sure when they meet up with george they will film that too :D

DREAM IS PRETTY SURE THAT HE AND GEORGE WILL MEET THIS YEAR-- HE SAYS A 95% CERTAINTITY the five percent is like either restrictions or visa issues

dream does not play any instruments but he had a guitar hanging on his wall when he was younger...

dream is convinced they’re the same height but also sapnap is probably taller??

they had george compare his height to a door frame and dreamnap were googling for any doorframes to find any possible chance that george is taller than 5′8″ ... nothing came up

there’s a chance they’re both lying about being 5′8″

sap and george will literally just show up in stilts to prove they’re taller than each other /j

dream without shoes is between 6′2″ and 6′3″ with shoes he’s 6′3.5″

dream is talking about awesamdude’s fake height arc again LOL

dreamnap are very private people so they don’t bother each other but george doesn’t care and would just barge into their rooms and start bothering them- they were all joking about that over a voice call

he will visit europe

he thinks that greece would be a cool place to visit because sapnap’s family is from there :) so it’ll be like a nice “treat” to go back with sap :D

dream isn��t entirely sure that the dream team meet up will happen this year but he’s working out the details because he wants to make sure it’s safe

he’s talking to youtube about his face reveal

it’s up to george if he wants to eat healthy when they finally move in

dream just has a lot of meat and vegetables in his house

spinach with chicken is good

not much fruit (only apples and tomatoes)

“DRISTA IS 5″ is trending on twitter LOL (her height got cut off)

dream doesn’t want people flying to different places because he doesn’t want to encourage travel so he wants to do all of the meet ups with a two day heads up at most

he thinks that it’s awesome that ranboo and tubbo are meeting soon !! :D

it’s very cool to dream to see how far everyone’s has come since the beginning of the dsmp. everyone has done so much

dream finalized his youtube plan a couple weeks before he uploaded his video and he was talking to drista about how he was gonna be a big youtuber in a parking lot :”)

she was the first person he really ever talked to about it

dream would love to teach george how to drive it’d be really funny :D (a very good video or a livestream idea) 

dream knows how to ride a bike, he used to have to bike to school

he can’t explain dnf.gay he has no clue he is not responsible. sapnap was the one who found it LOL. he is adamantly exclaiming that it was not him

dream doesn’t worry about views/likes/dislikes a lot- mainly views but that’s for the new uploads

he hasn’t uploaded in like a month and a half (*cries*)

he wants to stream at some point but he doesn’t know when 

he wants to play geoguessr but not now... he doesn’t want to alt stream rn- maybe tomorrow!

he is insisting that the splash text on his minecraft home screen is by callahan

he asked callahan to send him bunch of text files that are dream team related so that the splash can rotate through it but callahan thought it was funny (it is) to put only dreamnotfound <3 so it doesn’t ever change at all and dream doesn’t even know how to change and he has asked callahan to change it but he said no (even though dream pays him LMAO)

the video referenced in the padilla’s video is still in the works, it might be handed over to sapnap though !

he has no idea if he will be in MCC pride yet

padilla got dream’s input for the video, dream found him to be a very nice guy ! :) it’s the first interview that dream did that wasn’t by a person with a negative opinion of dream

dream felt relaxed doing the interview with padilla 

?????? he’s blaming callahan for his “dnfisreal” nickname in bedwars 

he’s blaming callahan for a lot of dnf-related stuff

callahan runs the dream fanart account thus the liking of dnf content

he’s so insistent that it was callahan

dream admits that he was lying about the twitter and other stuff but for sure callahan did code the splash text in LOL

dream liking that tweet “the chances of george doing a hot tub stream is the same of dnf dating” was “funny” he wasnt trying to do any commentary...

the inside joke of “oh it’s all just a joke to you” originates from george and sapnap actually always fighting (like them yelling and shouting at each other) and george said something really mean and sapnap was hurt then geroge said “it was just a joke” and sapnap replied with that line and ever since then it’s been a meme LOL

he says that everyone does the hand-on-the-passenger-seat-while-reversing thing

dream is offline raiding with his chat with 6k people

dream appreciates us and will talk to us soon! 

[ahockeywrites]

Is that a drawing of me?

You sighed. Your professor set you an assignment to draw something that makes you smile. His suggestions included a pet, a sport or a loved one. Naturally, the first thing that came to your head was your boyfriend, the resident pest of Calgary, Matthew Tkachuk. The only problem you had, is that drawing faces was your weakness when it came to your artwork. It wasn’t that you couldn’t draw faces, if it was a life or death situation, yes, you could draw a face. However, when compared to your nature drawings, they were second best.

“So, are we gonna get a drawing of Mr Hockey hotshot this time?” your friend Anna asked. You looked at her with a look only she could read. Realistically, the answer should have easily been yes, but your worry of making him look bad was heightening your anxiety.

“It��s an idea, but you know how I was in our portraits module. How can I do the man I love justice when I can barely draw someone with straight hair,” you said as you slumped into the chair in the small coffee shop. “His curls will be the death of me.” Taking a small sip of your coffee, you noticed a text from the devil himself.

Matty: Hey baby, just wanted to let you know I’m back from practice now! Let me know what you want to do for dinner :) x

You: Urm… I’m good for anything? Something quick bc I’ve got college work to do x

Anna could tell that you were talking to Matt, solely by the way that your face lit up whenever you two spoke. “But, who or what else would you draw?  I mean, I’m planning on doing my family by the lake back home, if that helps?” Anna offered. You knew she was just trying to help, but you had to draw Matthew. You had skirted around it before but you had decided.

“I’m gonna draw him, but hopefully not too well,” you said, “I can’t inflate his ego any more. I think Brady and Taryn would want words with me.” The two of you giggled, knowing that anything that made him look too good in his eyes would just make his head grow 20 sizes.

“Yes my love!!” Anna exclaimed, “shall we stop by the art store before art history?”

“I think I’m gonna need to,” you explained, “I need some new canvases and a lot of red pencils if he’s gonna be in Calgary gear.”

The two of you left the coffee shop for the nearby warehouse full of art supplies. It was just off campus and offered a generous student discount to almost anyone. You wandered down by the canvases, trying to figure out which size would be right for your latest piece. Too small and the picture would look cramped, too large and the image could look out of proportion. Eventually, you settled on a relatively large one and by this time had picked up some very Calgary appropriate red and black pencils. You also spotted a scrapbook that looked perfect to start filling with photos of you and Matthew.

Scrapbooking was something you had always wanted to get into, but it never came up in your studies and you always thought that you should practice line art or painting. But with your second anniversary coming up, it was something you could do in your downtime to relax but also create something beautiful. All you had to do was get a few rolls of washi tape and some photo corners. Everything else, if you had forgotten it, could easily be ordered later.

2 hours and $150 later, you exited the store with Anna and headed to your final lecture of the day. Now, just because you enjoyed both art and history did not mean that you enjoyed the combination of the two. Especially when the professor decided that it would be fun to set a 2000 word essay on the Renaissance period. “I cannot wait for this day to be over,” Anna spoke aimlessly.

“Honestly, same, hopefully Matt has got some food ready for when I’m back,” you hoped, no, prayed to someone above that he had actually made something and hadn’t burnt down your apartment. “I’m gonna head off now, but text me updates of your portrait?” you asked Anna. She nodded and you started your short walk from campus to the apartment.

15 minutes later, you arrived home and tumbled through the door. The smell of something baked filled your nostrils. “Matty baby?” you called out, hoping he would hear you and give you a hand with all the supplies you had bought.

“Y/N!” he called, coming to the hallway. “Need a hand?” he asked, but the two of you knew it was rhetorical. You let out a small giggle and gave him two of the bags you had filled to the brim with scrapbooking items. Now, you could have hidden them from him, but it was likely that he wouldn’t even know what they were so you were safe. The two of you moved in sync to the office of the apartment which very quickly had become your own personal studio with an easel and multiple chests of drawers with the most random supplies in them.

“Just pop them down anywhere, I have a drawing I want to start tonight along with an essay,” you complained.

“Don’t you worry, I have wine and lasagne,” Matthew sang. You audibly groaned at the sound of food, all you wanted was a warm meal and to relax. At least you’d be able to get one of them tonight.

You two sat down at the island that graced the kitchen of the apartment. Matthew had set the table and even put a few candles out, “I thought you could do with an hour or so of doing nothing,” he spoke as he went to grab your hand. He rubbed soft circles over your knuckles as you picked up your wine glass with your other hand.

As you took your first bite of the lasagne, you sent your boyfriend a wink. Lasagne was one of the few things he could cook and not mess up and he knew that. “I am so glad that I have a small amount of time before I start my drawing tonight,” you explained.

“What are you drawing?” Matt asked as he lifted his wine glass to his lips.

“That is something I would rather not share just now, but you’ll find out later,” you winked. You were never particularly secretive when it came to your artwork so he was slightly confused but he went along with it. Maybe, he thought, it was going to be a gift for someone and you didn’t want him to spoil the surprise.

The two of you continued to chat over dinner, talking about practice and how boring your lectures were. The boy sitting across from you never failed to make you laugh and you knew that you couldn’t draw anyone else other than him. As he was talking, you allowed yourself to take in his features and you tried to think of the best way to draw them. “If you’re done staring, I’m gonna sort the dishes out,” Matt laughed. You hadn’t even realised you were looking so intently at him. “I know I’m beautiful,” he got out before you tried to tackle him to the ground, however, your strength was nothing compared to his.

“I think this means it’s time for me to go and get started with my assignment,” you giggled from underneath him. “Come grab me if I’m still working and should be asleep, yeah?” you asked. He nodded and let you head to the office.

Once seated in the office, you pulled out your laptop and google searched Matt’s name, hoping some good images of him came up. Or at least, some that you could try to emulate. You found one of him smiling and celebrating a goal and thought that would be perfect. It also meant that the majority of his curls were underneath a helmet so wouldn’t have to worry.

Grabbing the canvas you had specifically bought for this, you placed it on the easel. You began to sketch out the rough shape of a skater in the foreground. Then, you moved onto the face. You thought if you did the face early on, you could fix any mistakes with it once the rest of the image was done. Starting with the eyes, then the nose and mouth, this wasn’t going as badly as you thought it might have gone. But then, the dreaded curls were staring at you from underneath the helmet. Sighing, you knew that if you didn’t start them now, they would never be done and a bald Matthew was something you never wanted to see.

A knock on the office door startled you, “baby, it’s almost midnight. You have an 8am lecture tomorrow and don’t want you to be late,” Matt said in a soft voice.

“Yeah, just gimme a few minutes,” you replied. By this time you had moved onto the logo on his shirt and if anyone saw, it would be incredibly obvious who you were drawing. Curly hair, Calgary Flames player, number 19, with an A on his chest. You were so engrossed in the drawing, you hadn’t noticed Matthew open the door and walk to be behind you.

“Is that a drawing of me?” he asked. You jumped out of your skin and he had to put his hand on your shoulder to stable you. You meekly nodded and looked up to him. “It’s amazing,” he said as he took in the drawing. Suddenly, he put two and two together, “this is why you wouldn’t tell me what you were doing, eh?”

“Maybe,” you said softly, trying to hide yourself in his chest. “Didn’t want to inflate your ego anymore.”

“Baby, if every drawing you do of me is this good,” he said as he pressed his forehead to yours, “my family better make an entire room back in St. Louis for my ego.” You slowly pressed your lips to his as a sign of appreciation.

“I take it you like it then?”

“Like is the wrong word, I love it. I also can’t wait to send a picture of this to the family group chat to get their thoughts,” he laughed.

“Well, as long as your mom doesn’t want me to do another one, I think I’ll be okay,” you said as you kissed him again.

[void-knights]

The Arcana Review* Edited!

[ID: Banner image featuring the text "The Arcana Review" along the bottom. In the background images of the six romanceable characters in this game.] (TL;DR at the end)

So it has been a while since I have written a review about a game. However, "The Arcana" had been recommended to me so many times, I finally decided to try it out. This is just my opinion, of the game. [Edit 1. It has been brought to my attention that all my issues could be fixed by modding the game. Yes. Yes it could. But I do not like these sorts of workarounds because these sorts of workarounds should not have to exist.] Pro: ✔ The Art is incredible, it's such a pleasing and cohesive style. ✔ The music is wonderful. ✔ The writing is good, I do truly love the world that they have built and the characters living within the world. ✔ The theme of the Tarot Cards is wonderful, it's not just a one-off gimmick like I had assumed it would be. ✔ Choose your own pronouns, She/Her, He/Him, They/Them. ✔ LGBT romances. ✔ Free to play Cons:

❌ Gambling mechanics exist in this game for you to earn premium currencies. Wish somebody had warned me (an addict) about that in this "visual novel". ❌ The cost of the premium currencies (keys and coins) of this game ❌ The sheer time investment if you cannot afford to pay. ❌ The fact that you have to watch thirty-second plus advertisements to get 50 coins (which isn't a lot). ❌ If you can't pay the price of the currencies or have watched five advertisements for 250 gold coins (which isn't much) and have used up all your keys for the day (yes twenty-four hours) then you either have to wait until the next day OR hope that Nix Hydra (the company) is doing a special social media event for you to earn even more coins/keys.

The company in response to other people's complaints (reviews on Google Play Store) actually suggests looking on their social media for these special events or doing "daily events" which is gambling. Which as an addict is not good!

I need to point out how expensive this game is! It infuriates me!

I am more used to visual novels that I can pay a flat rate for. I pay £20 and I get the complete the story, maybe there will be paid DLC for a further £5 but even then that is fucking cheaper and less time-consuming than this game. Unless you are willing to spend obscene amounts of money you cannot sit down with this visual novel/game and play through an entire romance route in one day. You cannot play it on your time, you have to wait if you cannot pay. To give an example: I played Lucio's route. To unlock "Special events" that I thought were just standard romance moments between you and the character in these types of visual novels you can pay anywhere between 150-275 coins per event. I calculated the cost of Lucio's route (only his route there are six routes each with a good/bad ending) and his two endings. (This does not include paid bonus content and additional content. Just the main story romance story route) 6975 gold coins. For one route. One character. Once you paid for it you have it. To "Save money" you can "buy a book" (which is essentially a chapter of this story) for 350 gold coins, that permanently unlock that book. This means you spend 4900 gold coins to permanently unlock all the chapters of this story. (This rate do not include the ending, but I cannot afford to pay for keys, so I am waiting for more free keys. I do not know if you need to pay anything in the endings.) But what does that mean? To put in context, if you do buy gold coins, you would have to pay for a bundle of coins.

7500 coins would cost me £93.99 3000 coins would cost me £35.99 1500 coins would cost me £18.49 750 coins would cost me £8.99 375 coins would cost me £4.59 150 coins would cost me £1.79 This is for one character. There are six characters. Six. On top of that, you get (I assume) 3 free keys in a 24-hour period by waiting 3 hours for each key to be given to you. You might get more in a 24-hour period. I don't know. But you need a key to unlock a "book" and yes you can buy keys with money. 5 keys would cost me £1.59 14 keys would cost me £4.29 30 keys would cost me £8.49 65 keys would cost me £16.99 If you want to unlock all the books at once, you would need to buy the 14 key package. All the keys do is let you progress the story. But once you have read through a route, I believe you can go back and re-read it for free. So no, you do not have to spend that money again if you want to re-read the character route. So let us say I buy 5250 gold coins plus the 14 keys that would cost me £67.76. For one character route, if I want to unlock all the romantic moments/memories. Otherwise, I can just plough through with the basic bare-bones romance. I did actually pay for 1500 gold coins to unlock some of these romantic moments, and they are significantly better than the free stuff. I would have to spend in excess of £400 to unlock all the character routes in their complete form, If i wished to experience this game like a visual novel and read over the weekend. OR I could wait for those 5 adverts to return, earning 250 gold coins for the cost of maybe 3 minutes of my time and wait 3 hours for each new key or hope that Nix Hydra is doing a sale on keys/coins. To put this in context, I was also recently recommended "When the Night Comes" by Lunaris Games. While I prefer the art of "The Arcana" When the Night Comes allows me to play a complete game. I paid £9.47 (the base rate, you can offer to pay more if you wish) for a complete story which included bonus side stories. As for the gambling mechanics THAT NOBODY WARNED ME ABOUT!!! Though I should have expected it from a free game, I never expected to see it in a visual novel! It just pisses me off that so many people recommended this game. It truly is a good story/characters/world and I love Lucio. But fuck! Don't give me that "You don't have to spend money" crap. I know that. But do you seriously expect people to invest so much time and wait just to unlock the next chapter of a story?!!!

[Edit 2. So I time travelled! I do not know if this affected the outcome for my daily 'spin the wheel' results. But it took me almost three months to collect enough free coins. You earn the least amount I think 70 coins on day 1 and 240 coins on day 7 after day 7 it resets to 1. It took me over 2 months to collect enough coins to permanantly unlock all of Lucio's chapters. Including the coins I bought with actual money. You also earn 1 key every three hours. So yeah.] TL;DR | No I do not recommend this game. Fuck this expensive shit. Great art, story and characters though.

[marisandini-chu-blog]

BRUCE WAYNE NEEDS MORE FRIENDS!!!

Okay... IDEAAAAA!!!

So... I’ve been binging batman and batfam fics and posts because I would die for them (but who doesn’t?) and it suddenly occurred to me that our favorite emotionally constipated person Bruce Wayne... doesn’t have a lot of friend.

Specifically, he doesn’t have a lot of civilian friend.

The only person I know I’m aware he’s closely acquainted was Harvey Dent and... well... you guys know what happened.

So yeah it made me crave to give this walking trauma of a man for some friend that actually has common sense other than Alfred and would willingly interact seemingly among the Batfam.

Kiran Devabhaktuni is one example of a marvelous OC by audreycritter (@agent-skulldrey) that I wish was canon because good God that family needs more than doctor than just Leslie and puts up none of Batman’s shits and is like a brother to Bruce. Gosh dammit I can’t get enough of him! If you don’t know him, check out Cor Et Cerebrum. Beautiful fic.

But come on, can’t Bruce have more friends in his life that’s not in one part of his life!!! C’mon DC!!! Give us some good stuff!!!

Alas, as I lament about this unfortunate circumstances, I decided to make him a friend and share it with you guys.

I’m gonna be upfront and say the OC I had in mind is just a copy-paste of Erin Gruwell with a twist. If you don’t know, go watch, read, or simply google Freedom Writers because I cried the whole day because of them.10/10 totally recommend because good God, there’s nothing more inspiring than children in bad situation manage to reinvent themselves to be better than what society believes them to be.. Which makes me think... what if there’s a Gotham!FreedomWriters and my mind began to race of this idea. 

The OC basically has similar background with Erin Gruwell, from the good part of Gotham or Bristol, who only ever been outside looking in at the criminal-ridden city. Faced with kids with difficult home life, traumatized, practically homeless, believing they live a life of war because they need to be affiliated with a gang to survive. She then learned about the wrong preconception she has on these troubles kids and decided to help them by teaching them tolerance, compassion, and understanding through writing and assigning books they could empathize and IT WORKS!!!

How does Bruce Wayne comes into this? 

Well... in the book, it was told Erin work together with a millionaire who offered a lot of charity that helps and support these kids and Erin’s teaching plan. Such as giving them computers to write a book, funding a field trip that helps them meet the Holocaust survivors, even offering these kids work and scholarships once they graduate. Someone that some of the kids of the class admits that they see him as a father figure because the ones they had were shitty. 

See where am I going with this? 

If you say, more Robins, no! Absolutely not. Bruce isn’t adopting any of them. I’m aware Bruce has a problem but NO! 

So here’s how I imagine their meeting would be. 

OC works part-time in a hotel belong to Bruce because the school was being stingy in borrowing out books for the “Special” class that admits kids with records or from low-income family as part of a charity program or something. So OC has to work to buy her class new and relevant books that would interest her students.

There was a gala, she was a waitress, and for some reason or another she meets Bruce and they start talking. What did they talk about? I have no idea. This is still the concept phase guys. I don’t know everything from about my own brainchild.  

Now, I know that sounds like meet-cute first meeting, but I want to emphasize the fact I want them to be BEST FRIENDS!  It’s possible they might have a relationship in the distant future but if they were, it would be base on the fact they were best friends first and foremost! Which make their bond that strong. 

Not to mention that OC is an English teacher so imagine if Jason Todd-Wayne, English nerd Robin extraordinaire, be in her class among all the other kids from the worst part of Gotham. Jason would be the OC’s pet teacher and OC would be Jason’s favorite teacher ( but to be fair, in this scenario, she’s everyone’s fav teach). Jason love her so much ,he wanted to be an English Teacher that can help people like OC. And Jason would actually have civilians friends he could relate and rely on instead of being an outcast among other rich friends.  

So when parent-teacher conference was underway. All the other parents didn’t come because they’re either shitty or too busy earning money to live. Imagine Bruce being the only parent arriving to find the waitress from his hotel. And because Bruce is Batman and Batman is curious as the deepest depth of hell itself, he might be curious of why a teacher from one of the most well-paid school would overwork with a double job. Especially when Bruce-secretly-a-helicopter-parent-Wayne notice the body-tells OC made when she lied about the reason when asked. 

So of course he checks, this is his son’s teacher, he needs to know there’s nothing sinister going on. 

Which led to him finding out about the fresh books that wasn’t assigned by the school, which led to him supporting her endeavor without her overworking herself because apparently she has THREE jobs just to support her one job as a teacher. Which made Bruce thinks “WTF, and I thought I’m a workaholic.”

Anyway, when the two work together they shared a deep understanding of trying to make Gotham a better place. They’re both from the good part of Gotham or Bristol  who has limited understanding about living a life in actual Gotham, just knowing that it’s a bad place. Both want to better the place, Bruce through charities and OC through her teachings. Both saw there’s hope and second chances for people of Gotham and willing to fight for it in their own way without giving up. As well as their effort to help helpless children.  

Bruce later admired greatly and respect OC because Bruce has help people both as a Wayne and as Batman, but the same as her class, Bruce finds hope in her method that by teaching compassion and tolerance, people (especially children) can change to be a better persons and live a better life. That life in Gotham isn’t one way ticket to hopelessness because of where you’re born. Not only that, but for OC to persist being kind and compassiom despite reading and seeing the cruelty Gotham has to offer.

I imagine Bruce showed his Brucie Wayne persona at first, but grew more and more lax as time passed. They both love Jason so they would bond from talking about him and Bruce might actually have a friend he can ask advice in regards to parenting. With Bruce being "Urgh, kids, you know?" And she's like, "Oh please, tell me more of your one troubled kid with my 150 one."

OC also becomes comfortable to talk about her grief of her dead mother, the divorce she recently settled, and just hangs out with Bruce. The struggle to not be jaded by the things she reads her students had to suffer. Because OC isn't only kind by nature, but she's kind by choice.

Now, in Freedom Writers the class was assigned to write a diary everyday. Including Jason. Imagine if you will, when Jason died. OC gave Bruce Jason’s diary for his birthday, and stayed. Imagine Bruce having someone to share their grief with someone who understands other than Alfred. Imagine the Freedom Writers gave a tribute to Jason on their graduation because they love him and know he would have been valedictorian had he been alive and Bruce cried for the first time since he held Jason’s dead body. 

I have other ideas relating to OC but it’s more Jason’s perspective. Let me know if you want to read more of what I have in mind because I’ve word vomit enough. 

[myraelvira]

Where Is Robert Sands?

Robert Lewis (or Louis) Sands was born sometime around 1926. He is described as having been around 5’8” to 5’10” and anywhere from 150 to 200 pounds. He had brown hair, though his eye color and other details are not listed on his profile on namus. His case is the oldest one listed in the state of Tennessee on the website.

Robert went missing around August 24th, 1960 from Friendship, Tennessee. At the time, he was 34 years old. On namus,  the date of last known contact is stated as also being unknown, so it seems that the August 24th date is more approximate than accurate. It also states that his mother lost contact with him in the early 60’s. There are not any comparisons to his case on namus.

The circumstances of his disappearance are unknown. A google search for any information on him is even harder. The only real post I came across on the internet about him, was a facebook post by  the ‘Tennessee Missing and Unsolved’, which went a bit more into his background.

It states:

“Robert Sands is the oldest missing person's case listed on Namus for the state of Tennessee.

Some of you may recall that we shared his story on here in October, 2017. That post stayed pretty quiet until August 2018, when we were contacted by a lady saying that she was looking for her Grandfather by the same name and similar timeline.

After comparing pictures and birth certificates of both Daughters, it was determined that these two women were without a doubt looking for the same man. Neither of them knew a whole lot about Robert as he had left both of them while they were very young and neither were left with anyone to really tell them much about him.

It was decided that both of these sweet Ladies would do Ancestry DNA in hopes of finding more family members that could help provide answers as to what happened to their Father. The results shocked us all! We learned that their DNA did not match. They both went on to find that neither of them was biological daughters of Robert Sands.

Yes, Robert Sands was married to both of their Mothers and not only was he listed on both birth certificates, they both have pictures of Robert Sands.

Unfortunately, this also means that the DNA namus has on file for Mr. Robert Sands is not accurate. Yes, the case manager has now been notified.

Though his Daughters are not biological children of his, they both wish to learn about who he was and what happened to him. He was the only daddy either knew.

We have learned a few details about his life prior to his disappearance, I am hoping that something here will "ring a bell" with someone that may have known him.

Robert Sands had lived in Utah where he was married to Karen Sands, their daughter was born in 1956. Robert and Karen separated, that is when Robert left Utah for good. Their Daughter's birth certificate has his name spelled "Robert Louis Sands". According to the information he provided, he was born in Los Angeles, California. His age is listed as 29 years old, and his profession on there was listed as a cook. Karen Sands was later murdered in Salt Lake City, Utah while she was 8 months pregnant by her boyfriend. Nobody knows if Robert ever received the news of Karen's death as he never returned for his daughter.

In 1957 Robert Sands married Lavenia Sue Weeks, their daughter was born in 1958 at St. Mary's hospital for women, in Madison, Wisconsin. When they separated Lavenia later moved to TN with their daughter. The daughter does recall Robert coming to visit and her Mother acting as if she was fearful that Robert would take her away. The last visit the daughter remembers ended with her being sent to her room while Robert and Lavenia had what seemed to her as a serious conversation. The last visit would have occurred in the early 60's, the daughter never saw Robert again. Lavenia eventually made a post in the newspaper that ran around 6 weeks so that she could obtain a divorce from Robert Sands. This same Daughter continued to ask questions and look for her father for years. Her Maternal Grandmother told her that her daddy always loved her very much. Lavenia was not supportive of the Daughter's search for answers but she never told her that Robert was not her Father. Lavenia did once tell their daughter that Robert Sands was not his real name, she said that she could not recall his real name because it was very hard to pronounce, whether this is true or not is unknown.

The Daughter of Lavenia and Robert would go on searching for answers. She contacted the Crockett Co Sheriff's Office in TN, to have him officially reported missing. Robert was entered into Namus and a DNA sample from this daughter was collected. The Crockett County Sheriff's Office told her this year that Robert was never officially entered as missing. She also went to the Social Security Office in hopes of finding information, they wouldn't give her much to go on but they did say that his social had not been used for work since the 60's.

The known places of work for Robert Sands are as follows. "The Hoffman Brothers" which was either located in Madison Wisconsin or Rockford Illinois. "The Madison Club" located in Madison Wisconsin, which is where the picture in the chef hat with the cake was took. "The Holiday Inn" in Memphis, TN.

Over the years many thoughts have come to mind.

Could Robert Sands have had ties to the Mob? A daughter recalls a vague memory of being told that their phone was tapped among other things. The other daughter says her Grandmother referred to him as a horse thief.

Could Robert Sands have been in service? The daughter was told that he was going blind from a war injury. It is unknown if this was just an answer given by her Grandmother to help ease her after his disappearance.

Did he know neither Daughter was biologically his? They both have pictures of them holding them and appearing to be a happy Father but one does have to question the chances of the same man unknowingly marrying two pregnant women within such a short period of time.

The only thing certain at this point is that both Daughters still want answers about Robert's identity and disappearance.

Can you help solve this mystery? If you have any knowledge of Robert Sands, please reach out and let us know.

We can be contacted here Tennessee Missing and Unsolved. You may also reach us by email at TennesseeMissingandUnsolved@gmail.com. If you prefer to call or text we are available anytime at 615-556-0534. “

Beyond that, there is next to no information on Robert Sands.  I did my own investigating, and at first didn’t seem to come across anything. I looked on family search for any sort of census records, but I wasn’t sure if all of the people named ‘Robert Sands’ that popped up were him. So I went over to my favorite website, Find a Grave. There, I looked up people named Robert Sands, and came across over 300 results. Having read the facebook post, I thought about how his social security number hadn’t been used since the 60’s. So I checked for every Robert Sands that would have died in America, sometime in the 60’s, and really only had a few results. Even still, I was unsure.

The facebook post had three interesting points that I wanted to search upon. First, was the fact that he potentially had a war injury, as one of the girls’ grandmother stated that he was going blind. This may have actually been true, because if Robert had been 34 years old at the time of his disappearance, then he would have been born in 1926. If this was true, then that would mean he very likely fought in WWII. Having had grandparents born in that 20’s that fought in the war, it doesn’t seem unlikely at all.

The second point that I wanted to look into, was the fact that his name, or rather his real name, was described as having been hard to pronounce. One of the things that I thought of when first reading the case, was that perhaps he changed his name. Perhaps, “Robert Sands” was an Americanized version of some sort of European name. I once again speak from experience, having had ancestors that changed their Polish last name to something way more easy to pronounce. I figured perhaps he had a very Slavic or even Italian name.

Third, I wanted to look up any sort of information on his first wife that died. The post on facebook stated that Karen Sands died not long after her relationship with Robert. I was curious if there was any information or news articles on her supposed murder.

While doing my investigating, I wanted to leave no stone unturned, of course. I wanted to look up as many “Robert Sand”s from that time period as I could. Just to make sure that he did or did not keep that name for the rest of his life. I was assuming that any public information about him, would of course be from before the 60’s, probably from the 40’s at best since the US Census doesn’t release census records until over 70 years later (which is incredibly unhelpful for missing persons cases).

While looking on family search, I came across a “Robert Clyde Sands” that had allegedly died in 1964. He was buried in Lynnville, TN, at the Lynnville Cemetery. The little snippet stated that he was born on October 2nd, 1926 and had died on June 2nd, 1964. The small bio stated that there was information listed about this person on find a grave, though when I clicked the link, it stated that the profile had been deleted. I am unsure why, and not sure if maybe this was even a real person.

I then searched for any Robert that would have died between 1960-1969, seeing that his social security number hadn’t been used since the 60’s. There was a listing for a Robert Sands that passed away in a California death index, though it doesn’t state how he died. Just that it was on September 25th, 1965. It is unknown how old this Robert was either. There was a similar California listing with a Robert Sands that died on December 10th, 1964. There were multiple Robert Sands that died in the 60’s, though I didn’t always get a birth year. It is hard to delineate who was who because one person could have been 25, and another 55.

When I looked on find a grave, I came across two Robert Sands that died in the 60’s, who I thought were of interest. One was Robert Sands that passed away on September 25th, 1965. I assume this must be the same Robert that was listed in that California death index. Robert was born in 1919 though, so the age doesn’t really match up. He was a corporal in the military, during WWII, and had been married to a woman named Virginia Sands, who has also passed away. Even though close, because of the military affiliation, I didn’t think he was it.

The second Robert Sands on find a grave was one born on April 28th, 1924. He died at the age of 38 on November 25th, 1962. This Robert was buried in Athens County Memory Gardens in Ohio. He also served in the military during WWII, and was a Tec 4 (a now defunct rank) in the 216 Medical Battalion. Even though this Robert has his parents and a child linked to his find a grave profile, there is no spouse listed. I am unsure if this would be the right Robert.

I looked up Robert's first wife, Karen Sands on find a grave. She was one of the first results to pop up.   Karen had been born on December 20th, 1933 in Salt Late City, Utah. She died on March 11th, 1959 in Marray, Utah, from shock and internal hemorrhage during childbirth. Unlike the facebook post that stated she was murdered for some reason, Karen died in the hospital, and the child was stillborn. He was buried with Karen in the same coffin.

Interestingly, Karen’s bio on find a grave lists Robert Sands as having been her husband. And in quotations next to his name, it states (aka Louis Rogato).

Taking this lead, I typed in ‘Louis Rogato’ into find a grave. There was only 1 entry. The man named Louis J. Rogato was born on July 1st, 1926. He died on January 2nd, 2017 at the age of 90. He is buried at Delano Cemetery in Delano, Minnesota. There are no relatives listed in his profile. No description in his bio. The one and only picture of his grave states that he was in the Army during WWII.

I went back to family search, and tried to find anything with the Louis Rogato name. When I entered in the birth year of 1926, almost all of the results seemed to be of the same person. There was information about his military history, that stated he had been born in Alabama, completed 4 years of high school, was a private first class in the army, and served in the medical department. The ‘event place’ happened in Ft. Lewis, Washington, and he was enlisted for the ‘Hawaiian Department’. Interestingly, this record also states that he was married at the time. This marriage is what I assume to be to a person named ‘Billie Louise Keller’, where it is stated that they got married on December 2nd, 1944. At some point, the two divorced, as Billie’s family tree shows another husband, and Louis Rogato’s shows more wives in his records.

In the marriage license to Billie, it states that both the bride and groom were 20 years old, in 1944. So Louis’ birth date would really be 1924. The certificate also stated that his father was from Italy, which confirms the Italian last name, which may have been hard to pronounce for some people back then. If he wasn’t lying back then too.

Louis Rogato married multiple times, with a divorce record from November 2nd, 1970 stating that he had split up with his ex wife Arlene R Lindstrom. Arlene seemed to be quite younger than him, as she was born in 1940, and 30 at the time of the divorce, while Louis was 44 years old. Unfortunately, this record does not state when the marriage initially took place and how long it lasted.

There is another marriage record that states that Louis married a woman named Pearl Marie Brown in 1948, in Thurston, Washington. The marriage is dated as January 17th, 1948. It is unknown how long this marriage lasted, and when it ended in divorce.

One divorce in particular that I find perplexing, is one from January 12th, 1971. This records states that Louis had been married to a Rosemarie Sands, who had been born in 1933. Even though his age is estimated to have been 41 at the time, I think that this is a piece of information that we can’t ignore. If this woman was named “Rosemarie Sands”, perhaps this is the ‘Robert Sands’ that we’re looking for? Now, a similar record states that Rosemarie Sands died on March 1st, 2001. But when I searched for her on find a grave, I couldn’t find her. I’m unsure if she took another name later on in life.

According to records, on July 2nd, 1971, Louis got married to a Suzanne M Weiland. She was 24 years old at the time, having been born in 1947. This would have made him about 45. The two were married in Ramsey, Minnesota.

Beyond this, there is no other information that I can find about Robert Sands or Louis Rogato. Personally, I think that these two people were the same person, even more so that despite Rogato’s death in 2017, there is no obituary for him. At least, no one that I can find online. His multiple marriages as Louis Rogato alone reminds me a lot of Donald Lee Laisure. I’m not sure why some people turn into serial daters, but Rogato was one of them. What is most interesting and slightly disturbing to me, is how Rogato would constantly get married to girls a lot younger than him.

Karen and Rosemarie Sands were born in 1933. This would have made Robert/Rogato 7 years older than them. Arlene Lindstrom was born in 1940. Rogato would have been 14 years older than her. Suzanne was born in 1947. Rogato was 21 years older than her.

Despite all of the marriage information, and even proof of death through his find a grave, there is not one picture of Louis Rogato. There is no obituary. This prompts me to think that he was a person that did not want to be found. It might sound crazy that an elderly person at the ago of 90 was still potentially avoiding people. But you never know. There is so much that we don’t know, that we can only leave things up to speculation.

If Robert Sands was Louis Rogato, then why did he leave his children behind? What prompted him to get married to two women that didn’t even have his children? Though anecdotal, I think a part of it was because of our culture at the time. It was extremely bad for a woman to have a child out of wedlock. I don’t know anything about Karen Sands’ character, and I don’t want to detract from it. But maybe she got pregnant by another man and married Robert to essentially save face. According to her obituary, she was a mormon, which are well known for strict traditional practices. As to why both daughters had the surname by him, if I understand correctly, during the midcentury when a woman married another man, the children would take the last name of the step father. I am only speaking from what I have read, and an example of this would actually be Joe Walsh of the Eagles, whose mother did the same thing after his biological father passed away.

Some people might be wondering what Robert Sands was running from. What did he leave for? Well, if he was really Louis Rogato, perhaps he got bored. It seems that he constantly went from relationship to relationship, and couldn’t ever settle down. Perhaps he had a few children along the way, and might have went back to using his original name of Louis Rogato, so that he could avoid child support. I don’t know. This is all speculation.

I didn’t think that this missing persons case would turn into something like this. I really thought that it would just be something short and an unfortunate low information mystery. But the more I researched it, the more it reminded me of my own grandfather. Who was never in my life, and just about non existent in my dad’s. A person that is still alive to this day, even though elderly, but refuses to contact any of his family. But this is detracting from the main point at hand.

At the end of the day, we don’t know what happened to Robert Sands. And we’ll never know. We’ll never know the true story. Many of the people that would remember him are not here today. If Robert really was this Louis Rogato from Minnesota, he seemed to have done a very good job at making himself unknown. Even if they aren’t the same people, I can’t help but wonder why Louis Rogato lived his life that way. It’s even more curious to me that a person could live to 90, and not even have an obituary about it. No family, no friends to at least say something about it online.

Robert seemed to be like some sort of drifter. Nobody seems to know where they were going, and nobody knows where Robert went.

[POST SCRIPT]

I decided to look for the graves of Louis Rogato's father, who is named as "Russell Rogato" on the marriage license to Billie from 1944. It seems that Russell does have a profile on find a grave, though his spouse is not linked. I am unsure of where Louis' mother may be buried. If this is the right Rogato, perhaps the only way to check if he and Louis Rogato from Minnesota are related would be exhuming the bodies. Not that I advocate for this, since I know nothing about either of these people, and their potential living family members today. It is simply just an idea.

While editing my video, it also clicked that Robert Sands' middle name was Louis. Perhaps an homage to his legal name of Louis Rogato? It seems all too likely that these people have similar names.

[SOURCES]

https://www.namus.gov/MissingPersons/Case#/17201?nav

https://www.crimewatchers.net/threads/robert-lewis-sands-missing-from-friendship-tn-24-aug-1960-age-34.998/

https://www.facebook.com/TNMissingUnsolved/posts/1761834383923310

http://files.usgwarchives.net/ca/nevada/military/ww2/enlistment/armyenli110gmt.txt

[thebraingremlinsaremad]

Daily Blog #15: August 22, 2021

Dollar Tree is honestly pretty fucking awesome 👌👌👌

I set my alarm for like 6:25 this morning, but it took 6 minutes for the "Horsin' Around" theme song instrumental to wake me up. I was pretty tired lol. I just dismissed it and went back to sleep.

I only went back to sleep because I knew I had another alarm set for 7:00. That got me up.

I should mention that this was still in the RV over an hour away from the house.

After I got up, I went to go get a shower, and did so successfully.

Unfortunately, I had forgotten my brush this time and had to do it afterwards after my hair had a bit of time to dry, which did make it a little more difficult lol.

I got dressed and grabbed my stuff, putting it into my car.

I made it a point to see and say "see you later" to my grandparents before I left for the flea market.

My dad insisted that I stayed to say goodbye to my mom, so I left.

I did NOT have cell service up there, as was mentioned in my previous 2 blogs of which I could only post today, so finding my way was a tiny bit difficult until I got some service to ask Google to take me to "...".

It worked and I got there.

On my drive, I listened to 1 by Simple Kid, a CD I had previously purchased at a Dollar Tree location.

I got a call from the guy at the flea market saying that I had some people there waiting for me. He asked how far away I was, to which I said "about 10 minutes." Ironically, that call made me miss my exit, as Google couldn't talk during the call, and added about 3 minutes to my arrival time lmao.

I did sell the Xbox that he said someone was interested in. I got $40 for it. I spent 27¢ on it. Pretty good return if you ask me.

I couldn't sell it with anything other than a power cord because the controller and AV cables I had been using to play it there were for my personal console. I'm just glad I can actually hook my Xbox up and stop having to drag them to the flea market along with a small library of games.

Not too long after I sold the Xbox, someone came in and asked if I wanted to see some electronics he had in his car. I went out with him. It was a pair of 3ft speakers and a Pioneer audio system with dual cassette decks (although neither of them works) and a 25 Disc CD-changer, as well as the standard AM/FM tuner. Additionally, there was a Fisher amplifier and AM/FM tuner as well as a Fisher Direct Drive turntable. He said he wanted $60 for em, but before that he casually, and probably accidentally, dropped that he was just gonna take em to the thrift store.

Big mistake.

I got em for $35 lmao. THERE GOES MOST OF MY PROFIT.

Oh well.

I tested everything. As I mentioned, the cassette decks don't work, but everything else does apart from the turntable needing a new stylus.

I posted some new photos of the shop to Facebook, and someone soon DMed me about a stereo system.

I priced everything, and it turns out I have about $300 worth of equipment from that deal, the Fisher amp and tuner being worth about $150.

The buyer will hopefully show up next weekend, for he wants to buy the Fisher stuff ($185 with the turntable), the 3ft speakers, an 8-track deck, and a Kenwood deck we've had for a week or two.

The speakers are listed for $50 (and are worth around $100-150), the Kenwood Deck for $50 as well, and the 8-track for $35. That makes it about $320 in equipment. Since he's buying so much, I'll knock it down to $270 and essentially give him the speakers or cassette deck for free lol.

Apart from that stuff, not much happened at the flea market. I sold some records, cassettes, CDs and I think 2 DVDs. One person bought a VHS tape? That money was the other guy's though. Oh well xD.

I can't say that I didn't miss my wonderful partner while on the trip. I actually brought along the stuffed animal they gave me (who's name is Greg) and snuggled with him both nights.

I was very happy to hear from them UwU.

They let me rant and I let them rant.

I honestly give them too much responsibility over me xD. I'm like, "Okay, I'm gonna do this. HOLD ME TO IT."

I know I can't hold myself to anything I personally say (this blog being the only exception apparently), but I listen to them pretty well I think 🤔. If they tell me, "No, you don't need that VCR," so long as it's not some weird specialty thing, like a worldwide VCR 🥵, I'll be like "Yeah, you rite bro."

I love you man xD. You control my craziness pretty well. I'm so thankful for you UwU.

#relationshipgoals

So part way through the flea market day, I went over to Dollar Tree to buy some snack, but ended up looking through the CDs to see if there was anything good. I took photos of about 18 CDs and flipped through them online for the remainder of the flea market day.

I deleted the photos of the ones I didn't want and kept those that I liked. Surprisingly, I ended up buying 13 CDs there, but not before dropping them on the floor like the dumbass I am.

Also, sorry for all the nerd shit I spilled on your lap earlier. No one cares about amps and tuners xD.

I'M LISTENING TO ONE OF THE DOLLAR TREE CDS RIGHT NOW THO.

I already transferred over to my online library on iBroadcast and put the disc into my CD changer, which is now holding 164 CDs.

Its max capacity is 300 discs 🥵

WHY AM I NERD

Oh well

I like being a nerd gurl

Also maybe a technosexual 👀

I get really excited over some electronics. Like. REALLY excited.

Some editing VCRs are like "Holy shit that is SEXY. Look at those goddamn VU meters 🥵. And hhhh there are like 7 inputs on this thing and individual controls for left and right audio gain, not to mention Hi-Fi S-VHS recording. Hhhhhhhhhhh please gimme ����. Why are you so expensive?"

I uh, mean, uh, *cough* look, pretty lights.

Oh yeah, I was gonna say the album I was listening to xD. MAN I GOT SIDETRACKED.

It's 37 Everywhere by Punchline. Def give it a listen; it's pretty heccin good.

Another notable album I picked up was Page One by Steven Page. I very much like the first track, "A New Shore." It's quite catchy and he has a great voice imo.

Also at dollar tree, I bought a regular bag of Fieras and 2 bags of Fieras Sticks, which were marked down to 75¢/bag because they're expiring soon.

I honestly like the generic Dollar Tree version of Takis more than actual Takis. They're a lot more flavorful when it comes to the lime, but also hotter at the same time.

Don't get the hot nacho ones tho. Hot nacho? More like hot pile of shit.

HAH

Goteem.

They're not that good xD.

THE REGULAR ONES ARE FIRE THO

"How do you do fellow kids?"

I got home and started working on putting the CDs onto my computer, and then onto iBroadcast, but not without first adding The Music Man to my digital library, something I had neglected for a month or two. The CD had just been sitting there lol.

I also switched my digital file for "The Black Parade" to that of the uncensored CD, which I had purchased before I event started working over 2 months ago.

MAN I'M LAZY

I eventually get around to shit tho lol. I guess it's just a matter of priority.

What usually takes priority is digging through everything to find something that I forgot about but then remembered, making a mess in the process that I would then have to clean up, at least partially.

I think the album just ended. I've been writing for a while xD. I'ma start "I Made You Something" by The Island of the Misfit Toys.

I'll tell you where that album came from in a minute.

In the meantime, where was I?

I kinda lost my train of thought despite reading up to see where I was. Oh well. On I go.

I ate dinner and kept working on those CDs, eventually putting my clothes from the week into the washer.

I FORGOT TO PUT MY SHAPING UNDERWEAR IN. FUCKING HELL MAN.

I wanted to wash em for this week 😭

No tight pants for Leonna I guess qwq.

Meanwhile, the box of my CD album cases is overflowing. I need another box.

I keep all of the album artworks in a big CD folder. That's almost full.

I wanna fill my entire CD changer. That's one of my big goals in life. Idk why, but I just wanna legitimately fill the entire thing.

My clothes are in the dryer now. I don't think I have the time (or energy) to fold them tonight. I'll leave that for tomorrow morning before work.

And God. Fucking. Damnit. I start school again on Wednesday. NOT looking forward to that, and neither are my 2 coworkers. We already have low enough staff, but only the two of them working is gonna be a pain in the ass.

I'll still work Saturdays.

I need to contact my guidance counselor to get out of the gym class I signed up for. I scheduled this shit before I found out I was trans, and I don't wanna deal with the fucking locker room situation 🙄 I have far more important matters.

Okay so anyway, the album I'm listening to came from a cassette. I bought this cassette a few months ago at the flea market along with a few others. The reason I bought them? They were all newer cassette releases from the 2010's, and they're all actually pretty good music from very indie bands.

Currently getting mad at iBroadcast's compression algorithm. It's unnaturally fucking anything over -10db up. Oh well, there's not really anything I can do about it.

I have like 13GB of music on my phone btw. That's about 3.5k songs on 268 albums.

I'm kind of an audiophile, but I'm too cheap to pay for a lossless service. Oh well.

They do actually have a lossless service on iBroadcast, but once again, too cheap.

Someone just sent me a friend request who legitimately posted that BLM and the democratic party are hate groups.

BLOCK.

Goodbye ho.

I don't get that. They call the democratic party a hate group when they hate people like me, and I, being more of a democrat although not fully because the 2-party system is fucked, think nothing more of them than they're very wrong about certain things, especially, as shown, that black people, as well as asian, Indian, native, and people of all ethnicities and backgrounds, are not equal to white people.

Yeh.

Totally.

You go buddy.

Anyway, yeah, I can, and do, convert music and video from analog formats to digital files in order for me to archive and listen to whenever and wherever I please. I've actually made a bit of a business out of it, but I don't get too much work from it. At least I'm not overloading myself xD.

I honestly have so much more to say, but I should probably go to sleep soon.

A few final shoutouts to the following people and companies:

-Dollar Tree

-Steven Page

-Broken World Media

-The Island of Misfit Toys

-Simple Kid

-Punchline

-My incredible partner QwQ I love you so much. Thanks for being the best all the time. I hope I can give you the best life ever.

Anyway I suppose this is goodnight. Lmk if you want a full list of the CDs I bought today! I'll link that song by Steven Page here.

And here's a good song from Simple Kid

I really like music lol. Enjoy these pieces.

Anyway, goodnight lol.

Lots of love,

-Leonna.

[marewriteblr]

Traits And Quirks For Characters In Fantasy (list)

idk if I’m the only one, but when creating characters for my wips, I like to google lists of traits and quirks to give a bit more depth to them. and since I mostly write fantasy, I thought my characters deserved some more fantasy-related traits and quirks, so here’s a list of 150+ traits and quirks for characters in a fantasy setting!! hope it helps some of you too

has tattoos that keep changing

bad vision—takes magical potion to see clearly

addicted to magical food or drink

weird things happen when they laugh, sneeze, cough…

sees things that aren‘t there—or are they?

speaks in rhymes

has a wandering scar

has a wound that never stops bleeding

shows symptoms of a curse but pretends to not know how they got it

physical signs when lying, eg hair growing unnaturally fast

can summon any mythical creature easily

has a mythical creature for a pet

brings a slight breeze with them whenever they enter a room

was dead once

refuses to eat certain type of food for no specific reason as though it were amoral or inethical

obsession with a particular period in history

obsession with a magical creature/species

doesn‘t dance or make music because weird things happen

haunted by a ghost, their best companion

always has a candle lit (eg for their ghost companion)

can speak a mystery language only very few people understand

can turn the light of single stars on and off as they please

used to be part of a secret society

wears shoes with wings, no one knows if they actually work

can predict the future correctly for a ridiculous/bizarre reason

lives at court, no one knows why or where they came from but they let them stay

can only talk in questions or riddles

always seen reading spell books though they can‘t do magic

always seen reading books though they can‘t read. bonus if the reason for this is magical

tells everyone about the time they did something they‘ve certainly never done

tells everyone they used to be a dragon, is obviously lying

is actually blind, no one has noticed

never speaks, only talks to people telepathically, they’re used to it by now

has blood of unnatural colour, tells the weirdest stories of why that is—story changes every time

sacrificed 7 years of their life to magical creature who might claim them any minute

sacrificed a body part, determined to get it back

sacrificed their good looks

always learning spells by heart and seen using them the next day as though they’d prepared it for the occasion

has a secret identity, eg can do a certain type of magic and sneaks out to commit crimes/perform on stage/meet their companions…

keeps getting into trouble because people are convinced they have magic, but they don’t

belongs to a human/non-magical species but was kidnapped years ago and never went back

is actually a ghost

is immortal but doesn‘t know anything about history—can tell you all about the migration of dwarf antelopes on their continent throughout the centuries though

always corrects people on history/mythology facts with things they can‘t possibly know if they weren‘t there themselves

allergic to magic. bonus if they‘re a powerful wizard or deity

obsessed with knives and swords. you can fight them but they‘re more interested in the crafting of your blade

allergic to a certain spell and only that spell for no apparent reason

always has a certain item or food in their pocket in case they need to bribe a magical creature today

miscorrects others‘ pronunciation of spells and pronounces them wrong themselves (eg emphasis on wrong syllable)

talks in a fake elf accent to piss off elves

pretends to be a species they clearly aren’t judging by their appearance, and gets defensive when told so, calling people racist

gets themselves into trouble by trying to seduce nymphs when drunk. also an alcoholic

is cursed to never remember any names—has forgotten their real name a long time ago so no one can ever have that power over them

introduces themselves with a different name every time they meet someone

heavily worships an evil trickster god

ominously refers to themselves in third person

doesn‘t walk but jumps from roof to roof instead

predicts the future but is always horribly wrong

challenges people to a quest all the time

seems to know every person in the entire kingdom

seems to be enemies with every person in the entire kingdom

spends a lot of time in dimly-lit taverns seeking opponents for a strange board game

likes to look for bizarre monsters deep in the forest

talks to their dagger

talks too much during sword fights

gets involved in sword fights but only ever carries a paper sword with them

makes up crazy and hardly believable stories when asked about their past to hide their guilt

collects a particular type of item that can only be found on adventurous quests to dangerous places

has large horns on their head despite their species having no such thing, refuses to tell anyone why

never seen eating

never seen sleeping

takes every time anyone mentions something being hard or dangerous to do as a challenge to try it

wears an eyepatch solely for the looks of it

collects dangerous enchanted jewellery

random hissing

an excellent storyteller, like unnaturally excellent

politically involved and fights for giants‘ rights

has a finger that‘s mysteriously shorter than the others

is best friends with a demon

is nocturnal but loves sunlight

pretends to be completely resistant to pain

always sneaking around

has a tattoo that keeps dis- and reappearing

enchants people with their acting

has a wooden prosthesis

doesn‘t wear shoes

changes eye colour every day

wears gloves all the time and tells people it‘s for their safety

hears the trees talk to them

believes the apocalypse is near

pretends to be immortal

breaks into people‘s homes to steal food. no jewellery. only food

pins pressed flowers to their walls

believes that flowers grant wishes

has random visions of other people‘s pasts that aren‘t necessarily true but always get them into trouble

strongly believes in reincarnation

talks in a different accent every day

is convinced they are cursed

sees every minor conflict as a challenge to a sword fight

fights their battles using nothing but darts

is an archer and also blind or missing an arm

accidentally stabs themselves. a lot.

always carrying poison around „just in case“

is at fault for the fall of a mighty god

knows all about mythology

always up to date regarding drama and gossip between the gods

immediately scared they’re about to be cursed whenever someone raises their voice

still mourns over the death of a friend

whatever they touch breaks instantly

chews on their wand (definitely not a good idea)

always wears their hair tied up into a bun, is longer than rapunzel‘s when worn loose

brags they were good at picking locks but actually just hit it really hard until it breaks

accidental shapeshifting

still waiting for an ominous prophecy to foretell their destiny

makes weird/seemingly unnecessary bargains with strangers

has something slightly off about their appearance that makes people stop in their tracks to watch them

unhealthy obsession with cloaks

is a great fan of wizards. collects wands and hats like action figures

horses don‘t like them, they ride a wolf instead

sings the spells they use

constantly mumbling to themselves or someone others can‘t see

can duplicate themselves but can‘t do math so they‘re always a bit confused

has a leaf sticking to the back of their hand. don‘t ask them why

is a painter, travels very far to obtain a particular kind of paint

sketches their dreams in a book after they come to them at night

always seems to be charged with electricity

freckles on their cheeks dance when laughing or when light hits them

makes up prophecies and tells strangers about them

grows wings when high up due to fear of falling

gets arrested regularly for pranking nature spirits and deities

sneezes when using magic

insomniac, needs a particular spell or magical food/herb to fall asleep

magic makes them fall asleep (when they use it or when others use it nearby)

mixes the weirdest potions all day

can‘t eat spicy food, literally breathes fire

necromancy but only to revive their dead cat

turns the same colour of any food they eat

dreams of becoming a knight

horrible short term memory but can easily recite anything they read two centuries ago

makes their eye colour look white just to mess with people

can‘t remember spells for shit. says them incorrectly which always goes horribly wrong

terrible handwriting. bonus if they’re a messenger who has to send important letters on a daily, causing things to go very wrong

can correctly guess anyone‘s magical power on a scale from 1-10. is stupid enough to point it out aloud, too

wears cloaks that are way too long

carries a fake sword on their hip

carries way more weapons on them than necessary

uses their dagger as a toothpick

plays with dagger when thinking

supernaturally heavy sleeper

gets the different species mixed up a lot

tells everyone how many people they‘ve killed in their life

a die hard fan of a well-known assassin

a die hard fan of shakespeare‘s puck

desperately wants to be abducted by the fae

heavily affected by the phase of the moon

[ardellian]

I’ve been reading a close friend’s study material (because I will throw myself desperately at anything which is not my study material--ehm--moving on) and since I’ve already ranted about this to everyone I know in person I now have to get it out of my system and resort to shouting into the void of the internet. Anyway, everyone interested in like, interaction with other humans in general and with young neurodivirgent people in particular, should check out Bo Hejlskov Elvén, who works with low arousal strategies for conflict management. Unfourtunately, I can’t find a lot of free material in English. Here’s a 50 minute lecture on youtube, though, which is very good.

Self control and challenging behaviour

!!! Trigger warning: Between 38:30 and 41:30 he talks about the dangers of restraints and the unacceptably high risk of fatalities. It’s very upsetting and especially so in the light of police brutality and recent events. !!!

First off, he starts the lecture by saying this:

We’re going to talk about autism--I’m not going to say people with autism or autistic people, I’m going to say people. Is that okay? Yeah? Because to me it doesn’t matter so much if it’s dementia, or just being angry, or autism--it’s the same behaviour and we need to manage it in the same way.

Which to me is just fundamental if you ever want to do something good for people and not just patologizie them.

Some highlights and thoughts under the cut.

Conflicts

I actually think a lot of challening behaviour and maybe even conflicts is just about problem solving. Has any of you ever been in a conflict? How many has been in a conflict?

[Audience laughs and agrees]

When you think back on that, isn’t like this--that you actually just did your best, didn’t you? It was the other guy who was an idiot.

[Audience laughs]

Often it’s just like that. I have a problem, and I solve it. My solution might become a problem for somebody else, right? And he needs to fix that. And then that solution might become my problem.

[...]

Because often what we consider problematic behaviour, might actually be a good solution. And he might consider our behaviour a little problematic as well.

If I could have gotten this into the heads of some people I used to know, then... Sigh. Anyway, this whole approach to understanding human interaction is based on the idea that people do the best they can in any given situation. And if you understand that, you can actually help them do better instead of making the situation even harder for them.

Self control

Some of us have a lower line [for when we lose self-control] -- we call it affect regulation. Some of us have a worse affect regulation. That means that when we get into difficult situations, we cannot just say, oh, it will work out. We will actually say; this will not work out. In a little while, I will hit my head on the floor, I may even poop my pants--I don’t want to do that; I need to have strategies. And then we do some quite amazing things.

Example: A little while ago, I asked you to stand like this [he does a funny dance]--you did that very nicely, thank you. Then I asked you to take off all your clothes--and then you thought: I might not be able to control that situation. Am I right? I don’t think I can figure out what will happen if I take off all my clothes; I might lose control. I don’t want to lose control.

And then you did something. You acted.

And what you actually did was amazing. What you actually did was that you refused, and then you laughed me right up in the face.

What do you think about behaviour like this? Is that okay?

Of course it is.

He brings up the strategies refusal, lying, violence, running away, threats, self harm, and name calling. He highlights how all of these strategies are actually perfectly rational and almost always solve exactly the problem that people are dealing with.

Affect contagion

Have you ever talked to someone who was depressed? Did you get a little funny feeling? Have you ever been sitting opposite from someone yawing? That’s contagious as well, isn’t it? It’s contagious, and using something we call mirror neurons or mirror neuron systems. [...] This is something everybody in the whole world can do. People with autism can do it, people without autism can do it. Everybody can do it, and we can do it from the day that we are born, actually.

Affect contagion is the whole idea behind the low arousal approach--the higher your affect gets; the closer you are to losing self-control; the more likely you are to resort to behaviours that might cause problems for others, which might even be the cause of the situation to begin with. Thus to solve any tense situation, bringing the affect level up is never a good strategy.

I get angry; you get angry; I get angry; you get angry; and on until someone gets seriously hurt.

When they did the same study [looking at brain activation when thinking about oneself vs Queen Elizabeth] with people with Asperger’s syndrome, [...], actually these people were using the Queen Elizabeth part of the brain when they were thinking about themselves as well. And that means it’s a little bit difficult to figure out--am I me, or am I you? So I need to think about it, to make it work.

That’s difficult for me to understand, I admit that. But I’m seeing it on my grandchildren, when they are below two-years of age; they can’t do it either. I can’t say me, or you, to a one and a half year old--I have to say grandpa. Don’t I? Because otherwise they won’t understand. And people with dementia; it’s the same thing. I can’t say me and you, I have to use names. And a lot of people we normally call autistic, they have this problem. A lot of young people, when they’re really stressed, they have the same problem. Have you ever seen two people fighting, and when you asked them what happened, they don’t know who started? Because they mix things up.

And with that, of course low arousal approaches become especially important. Controlling your affect when someone else is angry is damn difficult for everyone.

I keep thinking about this when it comes to online communication. In a face-to-face interaction, as stressful situation is contained in time very effectively. Online; on social media with its lack of any kind of temporal context, it just isn’t. It’s so easy to read a tweet that was posted a month ago and get affected by the anger from the past in your present. And then you are more likely to deal with it by venting, and suddenly there is no after. Online, we live in constant outrage. Constant high affect.

Mmm, okay first hit on google regarding affect contagion and social media is this:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/facebook-emotions-are-contagious/

The findings suggest that emotional contagion can occur in an online social network, even without face-to-face interaction between two people. "We show that simply failing to 'overhear' a friend’s emotional expression via Facebook is enough to buffer one from its effects," the authors wrote.

I mean, I don’t know what I’m talking about here. And I don’t want to imply that I think social media is bad, because in general I really don’t, I just want to understand what it does to me so that I can deal with it constructively.

Also--I find this funny:

Interestingly, the findings also challenge the idea that seeing the positive posts of others may have a negative impact on people by making them compare themselves against their friends. Instead, the researchers found that seeing positive posts in their feed prompted people to make more positive posts themselves.

Of course seeing that my friends are happy makes me happy.

And finally--

Restraints (TW police brutality)

Even when they restrain children, people think that they’re doing the best--and I think it’s just plain stupid. I’m sorry. Because it’s very, very dangerous. We have more than 150 documented restraint related deaths among children in the last 25 years--850 among adults. 80% of those had autism. 80%--why?

There was a policeman, he said: Uhh, but we do not decide how much force we need to use, it’s the person who does it. I said: How?

We continue until he gives in.

And autism is one of those things where we’re very very bad at giving in, isn’t it?

[screams into a pillow]

If you ever need another argument for why having an institution with a monopoly on violence is a fucking terrible idea--there you go. Everything the police are specially allowed to do (and thus implicitly encouraged to do) that sets them apart from other insitutions is what makes them terrible at their jobs.

[fantranslatorbychoice]

Oh glob, what have I gotten myself into? Just some long updates lol XD

Well, the year’s almost over, and it’s already the second half. The first half was too much and to be honest, I had to swim with the circumstances I am in right now so I had to put this passion non-profit project on hold, like seriously. But I did started translating the first few pages as early as December last year, as my very nice benefactor actually sent me the rest of the entire set of the Kakuriyo no Yadomeshi series after sending off the first 4 volumes. Probably read the entire thing first. But hey, free stuff is free so why complain. Plus my benefactor actually got the entire set for a steal, won’t say how much but in Amazon Japan, the last time I checked the whole set is roughly around $150 or a bit around that. and that’s just the first 7 volumes. Probably there’s an entire set now that’s about $200, as the final volume was released around August 2019.

Spoiler alert: the entire light novel series is made up of 10 volumes, so if you read it, the afterword by Yuuma-sensei specifically says that volume 10 is the final one, and Yuuma-sensei feels sad about it.

Yeah I highlighted that part in red, just in case many Kakuriyo fans still have some extreme hunger pangs or are unsure whether the novel series has ended. Here you go, straight from the horse’s mouth. Yuuma-sensei also has another Ayakashi light novel series, 浅草鬼嫁日記, roughly-translated to “Asakusa Wife from Hell Diaries”. Seems fun, they’re literally ogres - Oni living in the real world, like a reverse Kakuriyo thing. Who knows, maybe someday I can score that series too lol. The writer really likes Ayakashi, if it’s not that obvious yet 草 草 草 草  yeah I write kusa lol oml I should stop... But returning to the Kakuriyo series.. I won’t spoil what happened lol but I will probably make a commentary on that once I get the translations up and running.

Which leads me to my next announcement:

I PLAN TO UPLOAD THE DIRECT TRANSLATIONS OF JUST THE INTERMISSIONS/INTERLUDES ( 幕間 ) AND THE AFTERWORDS (あとがき) OF EACH VOLUME.

Chapter 5 is the only complete and full English Translation that I will be uploading here, and the rest will be summarized versions of the chapters plus my translation notes and commentaries.

Bummer, right?

Well, to be honest, after starting my initial translations I ran into several issues which made me feel sucker-punched and added to the stuff I’m worried about:

Issues regarding plagiarism (either my stuff getting plagiarized or potentially being accused of it)

Translating everything actually takes too long, even for me (I’ll explain that later)

More serious issues like possible DMCA-ish complaints (won’t want my hardwork just getting flagged and killed)

Personal stuff piling up and affecting my momentum

To be honest, when I received the books, I was so excited to work with them and upload as much as I can. But lots of things happened one after another, plus the worldwide issue that we have right now, so doing fun stuff wasn’t at the front of my priorities. So at the moment, I am mostly offline, by necessity, like connection is slower and with data cap, so I mostly do my translations with whatever hardcopies of dictionaries that I have on hand, offline. It’s good and all since I can put my skills to the test, but it can be expected that not all of the words are available in the books so I still have to hook on Jisho just to find the missing words I need. So my stuff pretty much looks like this:

I could just take pictures of these and upload them here but the maximum number of pics that tumblr allows is 15, and good glob I have more than 15 pages of translated material. Plus, as you can see above, some parts are untranslated and I had to find them in Jisho once I get online, so right now I have about 50% word-processed with the raw parts cooked, and I only have 12 raw pages remaining to be cooked and hashed lol

Which leads me to my next issues: my slowness (yeah I have to surrender on my slowness) and my fears regarding plagiarism.

I actually only started doing these translations in full blast around 2 months ago, and eventually I had to slow down so I won’t get bogged down since I also do other stuff. But I found out that ploughing through it can get quite draining. I started thinking that fan-subbing and scanlating were easier because aside from working digitally, these were also mostly done in teams so work time gets cut. Well, those were the days lol But for this one, aside from flying solo, I had to use all of my offline resources a lot, like doing everything by hand. It finally broke me about half-way and I had to step away from it, like reaaaaally step away from it. I thought I could finish 50+ pages in a span of a week. Well, I wasn’t exactly wrong there, but I also had other stuff to do, and if I just read it like I would any book without having to do anything, it’s a done deal. But having to translate stuff was draining, I felt frustrated so it broke me. I have to write each page by hand, leave out the words I can’t find or don’t know, and move on to the next page until my body stops working. Rinse and repeat until I could finish about 10 pages and get on with the typesetting and completing the missing parts. That takes a while so I just do my best to be patient.

Then the thoughts of plagiarism popped in and out, like I started thinking how to ensure that my stuff doesn’t get stolen and reposted elsewhere, or worse, getting my site shut down because fan translations are ambiguously illegal, like fansubs and scanlations, and I think those were what got me the most, so I just gave up midway. I’d say ambiguously illegal because if a series or title wasn’t licensed elsewhere then translating it is a fair game. But if it’s already released as a translated version by publishers, then releasing a translated version is like labelled as stealing, even if it’s non-profit. Of course profiteering is the worst, some steal what others work hard for, that they did for free, and sell them off. Scumbags to the bone smh I do my best to be within the fair use thing since I understand how much effort is made in creating content, so at present I have just decided to just put up the intermissions and the afterwords because aside from these being only a few pages long, it’s less likely to get whacked. Plus it’s easier for my psyche to just sum up each chapter and add some comments on it so it won’t be taken down, plus I wont’ be too-attached so even if some nutjobs repost it elsewhere because some people are just unempathetic like that, at least I won’t be as resentful. Plus the afterwords are just so cute, Yuuma-sensei gives off an adorable and relatable vibe, so I feel like aside from just showing off her stories, I think she needs to get signal-boosted too, so people would have an idea on who wrote this hunger-inducing light novel series lol.  I only started to pick up the whole thing again about a week ago, and I still wasn’t fast but at least I got to add at least 20 more pages translated, plus I started to type the first pages and add the missing words so at the very least, I felt some sort of achievement. It gave me some hope, and to be honest I have been doing this to maintain my sanity even for just a bit, so I guess I will do my best to bring Yuuma-sensei’s work out into the world. It’s a really good series, and it got animated into 2 seasons, plus the manga’s out, so that says a lot on how the series caught on. It can’t be denied that it’s a really engrossing series, so I don’t see any reason why this really good series should remain hidden. It probably has a lot of fans but aren’t being too attached into it because of language barriers, and even in my own way, I would like to bridge that gap. I mean, I may have slow internet that can only open mails in basic html but hey, this is the least I could do for the fandom. It’s not like I spew out doujin stuff or anything lol

OK, so summing up this long-ass update:

Chapter 5 - The Mysterious Capital Youto** - coming soon

Will just translate the intermissions and afterwords into English

English summaries of the chapters plus commentaries will be uploaded

Please don’t expect any fast uploads lol it’s not like I do ctrl+A into Google translate and slap it in here. Nothing against doing that but.. uhm, sometimes AI don’t get the nuances translated, and a lot gets lost in translation, so at best, anything done by some trash enthusiast, even noobs can still have some oomph in it that soulless beings can’t even top off. But hey, that’s just my opinion lol

So yeah, there you have it, a long update. Oh, and I changed the name of this blog because I have other raw stuff that I may be able to put here without any fear of being taken down because they’re in the public domain, so they’re all fair game since I don’t get any profit from them anyway and others may also appreciate them too. Hint: One is a series of Japanese classic  fantasy short stories, the other one is a set of instructional manuals on how to write kana and kanji in ballpen and brushpens. They’re a bit lighter so once I get Chapter 5 up I’ll do them as soon as I get rested.

See you all later and thank you for stumbling in this blog. xoxoxo

[unordinary-analysis]

Episode 166

Honorable mentions:

I always love seeing a student with John’s old ‘loser’/helmet hair lmao it makes me happy

For the first time ever, when I say ‘Remi, pop off queen’ you know I actually mean it lol

Tldr: the high-tiers (can’t really call them “royals” anymore can we) establish themselves and prove their worths as paragons (perfect examples) of what royals should be and i applaud them for it

The amount of joker masks that the superhero posse brought in has to be representation of their power. Isen, the lowest-ranking of the superhero posse brought 1, Remi brought 3, and Blyke brought 3. You might be thinking ‘hey remi is more powerful than blyke’ but we know that he’s been working hard recently and because he only has one more mask than Remi, i think this idea is plausible. so let me believe that blyke is more powerful than remi please.

Nothing to really say about Isen except that he needs a hug

Going to ignore that remi listed cecile as someone she wanted to recruit help from because i would just get my hopes up

Only occured to me now that i could pull off a John and Rei comparison especially after reflecting over episode 150

Arlo and seraphina give off such close vibes and it’s obviously because they got close (or at least intensely familiar) when they were the king and queen and i just- i absolutely love when plots or characters go full circle and reflect (revisit?) the start of the story even though that sounds anti-development, it’s not im just bad at explanations.

WHAT I WOULD GIVE FOR CECILE TO BACKSTAB JOHN not that i don’t like john because i absolutely aDORE him because of his impact on the story, but i just want to see Cecile backstab someone and john is convient

just me talking for a bit, scroll if you want to skip to the actual content i understand ;( :

Okay: so.

I’ve figured out that instead of putting little talkative comments in the honorable mentions like I’ve been doing lately, I can put them here and not feel like total trash and that I’m downgrading the post so that’s fun.

Anyway, sorry if the massive ton of parentheses(?spelling) i'm using is confusing or hard to read. I mean, I won’t fix it, but I hope it’s not too bad ya know

Again: sorry for talking like im texting someone in 2017 it’s an issue, im aware. No one ever says anything, but yeah?? Im sorry???

Im panic-writing this an hour before the new episode drops so hopefully this is up before then, there’s no real hope though it takes me 10 minutes just to transfer this from my google doc to tumblr because i have to manually re-add all of the bold and italics and bullet points. Still not removing this bit tho even if (lmao “if”) it’s late ;)

Talking too much, but whenever you see (?”spelling/grammar/word choice/etc”), that just means that I messed up in that way, but I’m too distracted to fix it. Figured i should say that eventually seeing as i literally do that every post

Next post will not be written in first person at all because i think it makes these feel way too familiar and makes new readers uncomfortable which is stupid but is how i would feel so we’re experimenting. If you’ve never read one of my posts, i just act very informal with everything i do and i just want to say, i'm not in this tightly knit niche group that reads these and that ive been friends with for years. i just. Talk like this. So don’t feel like you’re eavesdropping by reading one of these. I really hope im not an outlier in feeling this way when reading other peoples post because if nobody actually feels this way, im bout to be real embarrased oops.

Im getting the talking out of my system because no talking next post.

Yeah this post is late. But: i stopped for pizza in the middle and my webtoon isn’t loading so im like sitting around waiting for it to

Remi:

    Now, in this episode particularly, it has occurred to me that I need to give Remi credit where credit is due. I made a post (AN: multiple posts but we’ll ignore that) over a year ago talking about her abilities as queen and- I did her pretty dirty. Not unfairly, but dirty. I basically dissed her a lot and said that she wasn’t a good queen in any sense. And I’ve done this multiple times (AN: ignore last AN) because I can remember at least 2 other times when I just berated Remi over and over for being shit queen.

    I’m not going to disagree with myself in this post (because I didn’t lie), but I want to give her some credit because I do believe she has changed recently and it has affected how I view her as a position of royalty. And, yes, while it is unclear if she is currently technically still a royal, what with John having somehow destroyed the entire concept of Wellston having royals (?), she has been taking the actions and responsibilities that a royal would. So-

    What made me want to write this out was in this episode, episode 166, I really realized/noticed her attitude and actions dealing with and revolving around this whole joker situation (currently more about the fake jokers) was?? Actually productive?? To explain: In this episode, we see Remi approaching a group of low-tiers who are worriedly talking about the joker situation and 1. Analyzes the conversation in reference to the measures she, Blyke, and Isen are taking to prevent the situation, 2. Reassures the low-tiers that qualified help (her, Blyke, and Isen [aka the superhero posse]) is doing the best they can, and 3. Asks if they have any suggestions or ideas that might help them attain their goal. Like?? Hello?? The Professionalism? And the way she didn’t let her disappointment that her previous efforts up until now affect her is a stark contrast from the Remi of the past. I’ve ripped her apart because of just how often her emotions would completely overwhelm any sense she had. So: that stood out. But, anyway, big picture again: This whole short little scene from her was so impressive?

    Honestly, the fact that Remi is going through all this effort to stop the fake jokers and make sure the low-tiers are safe is very different than what we would’ve seen from her in the past. One of the common reasons that I kept saying Remi was a bad queen was because she didn’t care about her responsibilities and didn’t take her authority seriously. There are even examples of Arlo, or others, telling her this (the example that came to my mind was when Remi was warning students about EMBER and Arlo stepped in [and the reason behind the events of this example helps to support my next point] {ALSO (sorry) afternote: I was reading through everything I’ve ever said about Remi’s leadership and I used this exact example in my post “Remi” from just over a year ago}). Another reason that I was against Remi as queen, which ties nicely with the previous reason (this sounds like repetition of like two seconds ago when I said that my last reason would support this point, but it’s not because words), was that she prioritized personal missions over things her school needed her to do. I remember being very pissed around episodes 110-120 because she ignored the big conflicts happening at Wellston in order to track down this separate crime organization (EMBER) and took Blyke and Isen with her (royals)(who were both against the idea). And I know that her reason for doing this is valid and I do respect her for attempting to avenge her brother, and I would have let this slide if she gave one thought or listened to Isen and Blyke at all about Wellston. I know this still sounds bad on my part, but it was many instances stacked on top of each other of Remi being, not just unconcerned, but unknowing, about Wellston’s current state as a school. At that time, Remi was the queen, she was one of the school’s royals, whose job was to maintain order and peace within the school. I couldn’t see any instances of Remi even attempting to do that. That was in the past though, because obviously, things are different now, like I said. Currently, Remi has gone out of her way to dedicate herself to the wellbeing of Wellston, that is obvious in the way she has been talking with low-tiers and unmasking fake Jokers. I only hope that her new motivation isn’t just a phase brought upon her due to her personal relationship/conflict with Joker, with John. I want to know if John ever happens to be dethroned or Remi somehow gets her technical authority back, will she still be dedicated to the school, or is her motive purely situational? I hope not? Because we’ve seen lots of change from her recently what with learning of the low-tiers mistreatment and all, so let’s cross our fingers.

    Regardless, there has been improvement in Remi. In her leadership and dedication. And that needs to be acknowledged. So I am doing it. Yeah. Here you go. Badge of honor for Remi.

    Obviously, most of what I’ve said also applies to Isen and Blyke, who are honestly going above and beyond (especially Blyke), just this section is a response to my previous statements of how Remi is not a good queen, not only for Wellston, just in general. And, again, while I still agree with my evaluation of Remi as a queen in reference to her past self and past episodes, This is a new development I felt obligated to talk about. :).

Blyke’s idea (?word choice confuses me):

Wowee this is a fun one. So: Blyke broke up a fake joker fight in a hallway this episode, and i just have to acknowledge this like I did for remi: props, but anyway, I was very intrigued by the way he handled the damage control like?? He refuses for the fake joker to be unmasked (?grammar) and gives the reason, “I’m not about to show his face so that you all can just gang up on him later!” And: applause. I think that this has occurred to me before, I just never dwelled on that idea, so I was taken off guard by this from Blyke. He was able to understand this and form a plan with how to deal with it? I don’t know about you, but that screams king behavior. Anyway, what Blyke does is take the fake joker to a separate room and unmasks him privately then talks with him as a way to both protect the fake joker’s safety and discourage him from any future stunts like the one he pulled a sec ago. And?? This is so great because, guys, this is liTERALLY the concept of like anger management and behavior therapy?? 

I especially liked how Blyke took the time to hear the low-tier out(something that the high-tiers are really starting to do [technically because of john because john became joker and caused all of this {and since john wanted to destroy the hierarchy because high-tiers didn’t give a shit about the low-tiers in a way he’s achieved his goal, albeit unknowingly}]). And, like i literally just said, by hearing him out, he’s creating yet another bubble of safety around the low-tier because immediately after (okay maybe not immediately, blyke did scold him a bit), Blyke says that whenever the low-tier is being picked on, he can come to Blyke. And NOT ONLY does this whole thing help with the fake jokers issue, but Blyke, along with Isen and Remi, are creating trust and respect between the low-tiers and high-tiers. This is them doing the hierarchy right! They are establishing themselves as leaders and as people that can be relied upon, which is exactly who the royals are supposed to be.

Just want to say: He also talked about how the guy who got attacked should also reflect on his actions, and yes, this deserves recognition, but this has been a common theme, so I didn’t think it was worth really discussing. Blyke got bonus points for this. Extra credit if you will.

    Remi’s idea:

    Back to Remi, but her idea about recruiting John to help get rid of the Jokers? Excuse me? The innovation, the growth, the potential. And, I know this was shut down pretty quickly by Blyke, but I still have to talk about it??? And this section is starting off horribly because there was absolutely no transition or introduction but hello?? 

    Anyway, obviously the fact that Remi would even suggest getting any help from John (Joker) is astonishing. 1. He literally beat up everyone present in the scene 2. Honestly from what john’s doing for all anyone knows, he likes that low-tiers are faking being joker (remi even points this out lmao) 3. Again, he beat everyone up? Not exactly looking good for any kind of compromise. And yet despite these obvious reasons, Remi still lists him as a possible ally. Why?

    Because when she met up with him before he completely dethroned the Wellston hierarchy, she noticed similarities in their goals and their beliefs. She says, and quotation marks mean quote, “When I spoke with him… I really thought both of us wanted the same thing… Just that our methods of approaching the situation were different.” !!!!!!! Remi knows that they really want the same thing: a safe environment for low-tiers. That was the one thing that John kept repeating over and over when they met up and talked (episode 150) (other than the fact that royals are shit but-): he wanted to create a school environment that was safe for the low-tiers. Whether or not that’s his goal now, or if he’s acting with that goal in mind, Remi obviously remembered this the most from their conversation because it seemed so similar to the way she was thinking. And Remi thinks that it would be possible that John would prioritize this over his dedication to his own personal project of destroying the school :).

    Anyway, this whole idea is scrapped by Isen and Blyke who give valid arguments as to why trying to ally with John is a really bad idea, but oh my god the way my heart stopped.

    This section is basically a summary and very quick, but this scene in the comic was riveting because of this. I just don’t know what else to say.

[neirawrites]

I was a Twihard in high school. Then I was a Twilight hater. In  2018, I decided to reread the first book, to see for myself on which side I belonged. I wrote my thoughts as I read, in multiple parts, but on my main blog, so I thought I might share them on my writeblr too, because I kinda had fun with it. 

Enjoy my many, many notes

Pages 0-50

I’m actually kinda into it. Yeah, there are a many issues every article on editing tells you to fix (filter words, -ing verbs and things like that), but i feel it. I don’t know what it is, but it’s there.

Bella isn’t that bad of a protagonist. Nothing too spectacular, but she’s fine. She is depressed, self sacrificing and hides her feelings, but also a lot more self aware than i though she would be(like when she notices mike, my son, likes her). She’s a typical teenage girl, the introverted type, way into reading. there’s nothing wrong with that.

I don’t know why i remember Edward being a draco in leather pants,but he’s also fine for now. mysterious and handsome and a bit weird. The first real conversation they have, he’s polite and nice and charming. I expected him to be a dick for like 150 pages at least.

Pages 50-100

I’m still really into it.

Yeah,Edward kinda ghosts her/gaslights her after the whole van incident, but with the benefit of hindsight,i kinda get it. It’s a wonder he didn’t pick up his entire family and moved to Alaska again. I also get her mood during that time and I've been there so i feel ya,Bella,it’s not your fault.

And yeah, Bella gets invited to the dance by three different guys and it’s all kinds of fan fic-y, but the fact she turns them down furthers my belief she’s wake up married to Edward in like a few years and realize she would rather be with Rosalie (a solid choice, might i add).

Edward’s really pushy, especially when it comes to the scene after she faints. like, let her go, you jerk, she can drive herself, but he’s more weird than he’s a jerk and i think that was intentional.

A big surprise was the line “what if i’m not the hero, what if i’m the bad guy?” which isn’t this super cheesy, extra dramatic sentence but a jokey joke told with a laugh. actually, that whole conversation in the cafeteria where she tries to guess what he is is gold and don’t try to tell me otherwise.

I’m reading her interests in him as less of a romantic thing, and more of frustration at his behavior,like she would still be fascinated by him if he wasn’t so hot because he’s just so weird (but being hot is definitely a plus).

Plot? What plot?

Still, while the flaws are there, i’m still enjoying it very much.

Pages 100-150

Is Stephanie Meyer into anime? Cuz she wrote a harem light novel,that’s what she did and that’s how i’ll read it from now on and have more fun doing it. (Might make a post elaborating on this further).

All this to say that we got to Jacob. Not gonna lie, I kinda forgot about him.  He seems like a nice kid and i’m glad Bella has some positive interaction. Team jacoj 4 life (jk,man,i was team jasper in high school which is in retrospect very weird of me). I know he becomes a friend-zoned dudebro later, but for now, he’s fine.

Meyer, lady, you’re winning me over as a half hearted defender of your work, but why are the girls so bitchy? Yeah,i know, bitchy girls exist in real life, especially in high schools,but girls are our friends and we need more positive female on female interactions. Just my personal preference, I guess.

Things are getting interesting. Bella’s dreaming weird dreams (just fyi, not a big fan of dream scenes in general), she’s googling like crazy  and we’re going to Port Angeles.

I never felt she has any sort of affection for Angela or Jessica who seem really nice and have done nothing wrong. Like loosen up Bella, give them a chance. I know, depression makes you into a bitch sometimes, but it would warm me up to her character if she was a little more affectionate with people around her.

That whole scene where she almost gets at best beaten up and mugged and at worst raped and killed is… not my favorite part of the whole thing. I get what Meyer needed to do, to have her be saved by Edward, but there must have been a better way to go about it. What do I know? I’m the queen of forced plot contrivances. I do like their conversation at the restaurant (again, why do we hate the female waitress, Steph?). I don’t know why, I expected Edward to be mad at Bella for what happened to her and he seems genuinely concerned and his anger feels… human. Some of his actions, however, do not.

He stalked her which is weird and creepy and I hate it. Don’t stalk people, Edward. most of us don’t like it. you’re lucky Bella’s a weirdo.

150-200

I kinda love how ok she’s with the whole vampire thing. she’s just “well, this kid i barely know told me a scary story, so i guess the guy from school is a vampire. it be like that sometimes.” my first assumption would be it’s all an elaborate prank to make fun of me (i have some deep seeded trust issues origins of which remain unknown). and he’s waaay to quick to confirm her suspicions. I think there’s an explanation in the part of midnight sun that got leaked, but that was like a century ago.

I would criticize her for being ride or die with Edward so fast, falling in love with him so quickly, but i exchanged like 5 sentences with a cute girl last night and a part of is ready to propose based on the artiness of her instagam, so who the eff am i to judge?

and i get why he’s fascinated with her. she’s the only one he can’t read.

why? i don’t think that question ever gets a good enough answer, but it’s a fictional story about a girl falling in love with a sparky vampire. i’m not here for complex science or detailed explanations.

he seems waaay too protective of her. She’s a big girl, Ed, she can take care of herself. It’s actually kinda annoying. i dislike how he treats like a child a lot of the time. he seems pretty condescending. also, if he broke her car, i’m taking back everything nice i said about him.

ok, let me finally address bella’s biggest character flaw, her clumsiness. i mean, i get why she has it but Meyer goes a bit too hard on it. i’m clumsy, i really am, full of bruises, always bumping into things, but Bella can’t walk 20 meters without tripping. i guess i’m just glad she becomes a vampire in the book four, otherwise the book five would have been about her struggles when she’s diagnosed with a stage four inoperable brain tumor that’s been mesing with her sense of balance and the whole things turns into a weird version of the fault in our starts.

if i were writing it i would focus on her trust issues and being unable to form real bonds with other people as her main flaw, maybe even use it to try and justify the whole thing with the mind Edward can’t read. Like, she’s too different in a way that makes her unable to connect even on a basic level, like that one Blue whale that sings at a different frequency than all the others. Idk,i write pulpy sci fi. but it’s easy to be a general after the battle.

we got to the two infamous lines:

how are you? 17. how long have you been 17?  is another line that’s more jokey than i though it would be, but also the most realistic piece of dialogue in this book. i would so ask the same thing.

About three things I was absolutely positive. First, this paragraph has been memed to death. Second, there was a part of me-and I didn’t know how potent that part might be-that would know every word of it till the day i died. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in like with it.

200-300

Not gonna lie, the whole part where he goes around asking her questions he is legitimately interested in knowing the answers to is at the same time my kinkiest fantasy and my deepest fear. like, yaaas, daddy, get to know me on the personal level and don’t be turn off by the fact i’m a tabula rasa.

We got to the infamous meadow scene and Bella is sooo horny on main for that vampire stake it’s actually kinda funny. She gets so effing into it she faints. I fucking love this girl. Go get that adonis dick, Bella, you deserve it.

I don’t mind vampires sparkle.i mean,it’s lame and fanfic-y but in Bosnia we have the lampires so vampires are creatures with a high dose of plasticity. i don’t know why that was like the worst thing anyone has ever done to the vampires. They are kinda too strong and could use a real weakness tho.  

So the lion fell in love with the lamb is kind of another joke. Also, this is the skin of a killer is sadly just in the movie.

I do have the feeling he likes the project that he sees in Bella more than the real girl,but ok. Also stop nagging her. He watches her sleep. What a creep. I don’t know why, but the fact that he’s a vampire who doesn’t have to sleep makes it kinda less creepy for me. I don’t know why.

But “if i could dream at all i would be about you,” is the kind of ultracheese i can get behind. they are both such teenagers and i kinda looooove it.

Also non of the boys were her type is such a lesbian excuse. I feel ya Bella, i feel ya. I hope you discover your gayness after the end of breaking dawn.

We meet the cullens and every single one of them has a backstory like 528 times more interesting than Edward. i need novels about them, all of them ffs. it would be so cool. but, one of my favorite oc’s Errien Lark gets like 30 lines in the whole book so i can only be as harsh on Meyer as on myself (which is to say a lot. neither of us deserve these characters, honestly)

This book would have been more interesting if Bella fell in love in any other cullen. Like, Bella and Alice, Bella and jasper (Bella and Jasper and Alice. Sorry, i’m into solving love triangles with ot3s).Bella and Rosalie, Calilise, Esme, even Emmett, who i remember  as mike of the vampires, but it’s been a decade.

300 pages in and plot is yet to happen, but it’s ok. we have the vampire baseball next.

the last part.

get your hot takes! hot takes right here

I kinda like billy. He seems like a nice guy. Also billy/charlie as my new otp.

“The beautiful one,the godlike one.” Bella, you are such a teen.

The less fucks she has about him being an all powerful ancient creature of the night who can murder her in a heartbeat, the funnier it is. She is just soo casual about it. Comedy gold, i tell ya. i mean, this is actually part of the narrative, Edward comments on it, meyer knows what she wrote.

Ed,maybe is you stopped saying she smells good, you would be better at not thinking about her as food. Mind over matter. Just a thought. Maybe i misjudged his virgin ass. Maybe ed the incel actually fell in love with her. Or at least what he thinks is love since they’ve been dating for like two days (look who’s talking?the girl who reads any sign of affection as a statement of love and then gets disappointed).

“Emmett could never be compared to a gazelle”. That’s sexist steph. Emmett, honey, you are as gracious as you want to be.

Also a big yaaaas on the whole concept of vampire baseball. we needed more of it.

Plot! Plot! Plot! Plot! Plot!

We have encountered plot. Only 320 pages in. three bad vampires came into town.

Story time: when i was in high school, all like 20 of us in out class were really, really into twilight (dudes included). we quoted it all the time but the height of comedy happened when someone brought their friend from another school to out class and someone else was like “you brought a snack” and a meme was born to be quoted endlessly for months. it was actually kinda fun. and probably very annoying for anyone who wasn’t into twilight.

Also, any development? Backstory? Motivations other than for the hell of it for out boi James and his ginger girlfriend? come on, it wouldn’t even be that hard. Also, some foreshadowing? There was like one line before. This is a legitimate criticism. it’s kinda shitty writing and a wasted opportunity.

Edward is being a dick again. I get he’s scared but her dad could die. Or maybe they’ll trun him into a vampire too (charlie/Edward? Think about it). But they all call him out on it which is nice. Bella’s plan isn’t bad, but “let me go charlie” is the straight up coldest thing i have read in a long time. it’s supposed to be, this isn’t criticism, just stating the obvious. But she showed like an inclining of love for her dad who has been nothing but nice all this time. Yeeey, she’s not a robot.

“It was the best idea. Of course it was mine” . Yaas, queen, you’re not that much of a doormat;  take that credit.

i would do something to foreshadow the ballet studio thing in the first half of the book. at least, have Bella or Charlie looking at pictures from her recital, just to intricate it to the plot a bit more.

Ok, now i remember why i was team jasper. He is so effing nice. And he would be awesome for my depression. Neira/Alice/jasper, i ship it.

i’m kinda digging the explanations of how vampires work and the whole venom thing. They are still op af and need to be nerfed, but i wanna be one.

Of course, he used the mom. She’s like the only person bella actually cares about. She falls for it. i would probably fall too, but i’m dumb.

the fact that james hunted Alice is a nice and a very much needed twist. it did catch me of guard. i would be more mad he’s a bad guy monologing, but i can only introduce stones to my own glass houses.

Bella’s now more into the idea of being a vampire than into Edward and i’m living for it. she’s going to use him for his venom and a baby and run off with rosalie.

“and how many times did she fall our of a window?” (yes, that is a Sherlock reference in the year 2018 of our lord. maybe i should do that for my next project. should i wait a few more years?)

her mom is not worried enough, honestly. my mom would be freaking out. but my mom has anxiety issues, so idk… (i couldn’t get her smooth hairless legs, or her blue eyes but i got that gene. thanks, i guess) .

“And i have a couple of girlfriends” now that’s a novel i want to read but i guess i’ll have to write the lesbian twilight myself.

“I want to be superman too”. yeeees, finally, kristen steward in the role of superman casting of the century. you would all watch it and love it, and you know it.

Charlie doesn’t deserve this shit. when will he retire with his husband billy in their cabin where they can fish all day.

“Do you want me to bolt the door so you can massacre the unsuspecting townsfolk?“ Are we sure she hasn’t been a vampire from day one?

Jacob is a sweetie (for now) just putting that out there.

Edward is kinda being unreasonable. being a vampire in your universe isn’t that bad.

Aaaaw, and that’s a wrap.

i actually kinda digged it. it’s nothing special, but i read these last 150 pages in one sitting. my main issues are writing oriented. very little foreshadowing, many filter words and things like that, but i guess if you aren’t that into writing, you might not even notice more of that.

it’s not the death of literature, it’s not the worst love story ever told. it’s just a silly and mostly harmless wish fulfillment novel.

edward can be a controlling and condescending prick but he gets called out on it very often. it’s not like meyer is completely oblivious to what she’s writing. and even tho he’s 100, i guess they are all mostly stuck mentally at the age when they were turned. or at least that’s how it seems to me. bella is kind of a bitch to everyone who’s not a vampire and she’s never called out on it, there’s a glimpse of change in the epilogue, but i don’t think meyer really considered it a character flaw. which is a shame, as it could have made for an interesting character. all the vampires have stories i would rather read about, as i said before, but what can ya do? that’s what’s fanfics are for.

i may write more of cohesive thought on it when it settles in my brain, but first, i need to watch the movie. i have a hypothesis i need to test.

but i don’t regret doing this. it was kinda fun and now i’m no longer ashamed of my twihard phrase. i could have done worse, as far as teen phases go.

Someone should like write a fanfic, but Edward is not a vampire, but a rich guy. And he’s into some hard core spanky business. And they should take all the problematic elements and just crank them up to 11. And add a looot of sex. I bet they could make millions.

Tho, honestly, how can you read twilight and not make bella the kinky dom? you fundamentally misunderstood the story. for shame

[takaraphoenix]

Did you watch batwoman? If so, what are your thoughts?

Yes, I just did. Now, I do have to preface this with: I’m a huge lesbian.

And that preface is important, because I watch different properties with different levels of leeway. Say, a show with a female lead already gets away with more things, but if you give me a show with a lesbian lead character, and not just “one of the group of main characters is a lesbian”, but “the titular only main character is a lesbian”, then you’re just... getting all the bonus points and you already have me about 150% more enthusiastic than your usual Straight White Male lead does.

So, that had to be said because I look at this with very rosy-tinted happy gay glasses.

Now, that being said: I LOVE IT I LOVE IT I LOVE IT I LOVE IT. *vibrates at high frequency*

Ruby Rose is amazing and I love her and when she puts on the Bat-suit that’s like that’s my sexuality. Seriously! The action, the acting, the look, it’s perfect, I love it. *fans self*

And I love her sister! Uh, the stepsister, not the blood-sister. I thought she was just going to be an airheaded rich girl character, or at the very least take A While to develop like Thea Queen did, but nope, she’s a doctor and she runs her own secret underground clinic to help the poor. What a damn badass. Can’t wait for her to be in on the secret and to join the team, which she inevitably will.

Now about that blood-sister. Urgh, I love Alice in Wonderland so to have an Alice themed villain is great. And, sure, I’m aware she’s comic-canon, but she’s not been in any recent major adaptations - those just circle through the Joker, the Riddler, the Penguin. Which I all do not like. In fact, I don’t like the majority of Bat’s rogues gallery - and I know I’m the exception there because most people overhype Bat’s villains so so much. But the fact that The Iconic Batman lays in the past in this show means that his most major villains do too, the fact that they fully remove Bruce from the show makes me hopeful I will not have to see anything Joker related at all seriously I am very much over that creep. That seems like something incredibly refreshing to me that I, personally, am very much looking forward. Not to mention that the sibling dynamic is going to make this incredibly interesting!

And oh! Oh that Kate figured it out by the end of the first episode?? Wow! I thought the “Who the fuck is Alice?” plot would at the very least stretch out until say half-time on the first season to keep the ““suspense”“... because that’s kind of what the Arrowverse does. Even way past being reasonable, they still pretend that the good guys can’t figure out the villain’s identity, even when it is painfully obvious at times and I am very happy to know that this won’t be the case here! That Kate is a clever cookie who indeed can put one and one together in record time! That has me highly optimistic about where this show is going to go.

Now, there is one thing that... kind of... bums me out a little and that’s the costume and design choices made on Luke Fox? Because, uh, Luke Fox is a strong, athletic guy who can kick butt. That’s how I first met him in Bad Blood and that’s what Google image search tells me about his comic-counter part too.

So this inane compulsion to make The Tech Guy wear tacky sweaters over button-up shirts (a style that literally only nerds wear on TV??) and of course wear glasses... and also be really squeaky and jumpy... just why. You didn’t have to go this hard to make sure he is The Nerd Guy. You really didn’t, because source material shows you he actually isn’t that type. That’s the weird part for me? Like, this character specifically wasn’t the nerd stereotype, so I don’t quite know why they felt the need to change him into one??

I’m wary of Sophie and Kate’s relationship. I need someone with inside knowledge to tell me that Sophie is bisexual, or pansexual, but just... not a lesbian. Because if this is going to be “out and proud lesbian chases after closeted lesbian who is about to marry her beard” I may have to head-desk a lot. I genuinely hope that where they’re going on that front is a friendship and that Sophie is going to join the team. I really truly want Sophie and Kate to overcome the past and to become friends and not to be a Straight Rom-Com Trope of Sophie choosing Kate just when she’s about to walk down the aisle or some shit because that’s just the most cringey thing possible.

From all I gather, Kate’s endgame is Maggie Sawyer anyway, right? Like, in the context of Kate and romance, there are only two names I have ever really heard and those were Maggie Sawyer and Renee Montoya (who I expect to see on this show sooner or later too).

Really hoping they move Supergirl’s Maggie Sawyer over here, doesn’t have to be the exact character since she’s from an alternate Earth but I mean this Earth’s counterpart would do just fine.

I also hope to see Nyssa al Ghul moved to Batwoman considering Batman’s ties to Ra’s al Ghul and the fact that Nyssa is gonna be homeless once Arrow ends and that another strong badass lesbian character would be amazing in it? After all, last we heard from Nyssa, she was destroying Lazarus pits with Thea and Roy... and you can’t tell me that this quest wouldn’t lead her to Gotham too...

Seriously, I want a lot of gay women on this show. And! Not even just as love interests, but because straight-written gay stories often are “The Gay met The Only Other Gay and they immediately started a relationship with each other because Being Gay is the only thing they need in common to work” and it’s kind of tiresome so I would love for this show, with a lesbian lead character, to actually introduce a variety of wlw characters to actually represent the fact that even we gays do need more than a shared sexuality to work out! That you can have gay friends without dating them and that sometimes, you don’t click, even if you both are gay.

What else aside from the gays, the potential future team (Kate, Luke, Mary, Sophie) and the villain? Ah. Yeah, the parents.

I don’t like Kate’s dad very much yet? Which feels odd because usually in these Arrowverse shows the Cop Dad is always awesome. Granted, he’s not really a cop. But let’s see where he goes.

And stepmom is totally shady? That shot of her reading the newspaper with concerned eyes? Worst case: She was behind the car-accident fifteen years ago. I just... do think that she’s shady somehow.

I’m eager to see what other Bat-elements will make their way into the show, what other characters can translate onto it, considering the “timejump” - the whole Batman having vanished three years ago and being already apparently... older, to say it mildly (he was already working at Wayne Enterprise and a very fully fledged Batman 15 years ago when the accident happened so he’s at the very least in his 50s now).

But! I am absolutely enjoying this show. Even had to put my laptop down to pay full attention to it. I don’t pay full attention to things, I always write fics while watching TV because I like the background noise. I only have/had a small selection of shows that I watch with my full attention on them and I’d be very pleased if Batwoman becomes one of them.