#and they look largely the same which is perfect for ambiguity

[pencilofawesomeness]

Red, the color of life—in the beginning, the end, and blurred space in-between.

-

for @theguildawards Discord Server Event: Colors of the Sky

I was assigned "red" which was super exciting because of all of the implications I could make with it. (*insert evil sad boi stick loving laughter here*) I had to go with Erza Scarlet and commit to the bit. Also I finished this a month+ ago and I am super hyped to finally post~

[fleuryuns]

presenting a fic by @FLEURYUNS

as the earth burns to the ground,

lay here with me

IN WHICH it takes an asteroid hurdling toward earth for you and jay to be pulled apart, and then brought back together—but it's worth it

PAIRING ⟡ wealthy (ex)bf!jay x scientist!femreader

UNIVERSE ⨯ end of the world au

WARNINGS ⟡ inspired by as the world caves in by matt maltese, exes to lovers, arguments, some platonic!jake thrown in there, ambiguous ending, elements from the movie don't look up, inaccurate portrayal of astrophysics and high school debate clubs

WORD COUNT ⨯ 4.5k

AUTHOR'S NOTE . . . starting again with the first fic i ever posted!!

"It's a silly rumour!" he said, exasperatedly.

You told him, "A rumour?! We've estimated its trajectory, analyzed dozens of possible routes, calculated probabilities... You can't deny the research, Jay!"

It was hard to believe that your relationship had come down to this. Had come down because of this.

You and Jay met during a high school debate tournament. His school had been reigning champions for years, until you joined your school's team and beat them. Jay was both annoyed, but impressed by your quips and arguments. He caught up with you after the match, and the rest is history.

High school sweethearts from rivalling schools, a true Romeo and Juliet reenactment.

The two of you went on to attend the same university in different programs. You—garnering a PhD in mathematics and physics, in order to pursue your lifelong dream of becoming an astrophysicist. Meanwhile, Jay went into marketing to one day take on the family business.

Although pursuing very different paths, you always came together at the end of the day. You'd often stay over at his apartment, large as it was, and watch movies together, cook new recipes he thought you'd like, whatever it is you both wanted to do, as a pair. Soon after graduation, you officially moved in with him.

Of course, you weren't perfect. You argued, you disagreed. There were a few significant arguments that led to you slamming the door on your way out.

But it always came down to how you first met. A good debate, a good argument, happens only when both sides respect each other, and don't let their emotions take on the best of them.

So, after every argument, you or he would call the other to apologize. Or, you'd wake up the next morning with a bouquet of roses with a handwritten note attached to it. Or, instead, you'd walk over to his place in the pouring rain, asking for forgiveness.

What brought you two together, however, eventually became what tore you apart.

During debates, Jay prioritized feelings over facts, in the sense that he would take on logical, everyday thinking to tackle the problem, usually winning over his opponents because they often lacked realism. You, on the other hand, gathered the facts and tackled the issue head on. In that way, you balanced each other out.

In another way, neither of you truly ever saw eye to eye.

You just didn't see it until word of an asteroid heading toward Earth came around.

You were ecstatic to be the one to discover the asteroid. At the time, its trajectory seemed to be close enough to Earth that it would be seen by an average telescope on the night it passes by.

"And my name will be on every article talking about it," you told him, wearing a proud smile.

Jay looked at you sweetly as you went into depth, ways that he certainly didn't understand fully, but he still listened intently because he knew it mattered to you.

Then, with further research, you discovered that you wouldn't even need any equipment to see the asteroid fly by.

"We could make a date out of it," he suggested. "When is it passing Earth?"

You continued to stir the pasta, humming at his words. "In about three months," you clarified.

You yelped when you suddenly felt his arms wrap around you. Leaning your head back comfortably onto his shoulder, you let him give you a short kiss. "Maybe we could invite the gang and set up a get together on the building's roof?"

"Sounds like a plan."

Within weeks, the morning tabloids were filled with new information revealed about the asteroid that you and your team discovered. Threads of information were shared on social media, and your name was attached to it everywhere. You felt a sense of pride whenever you checked your phone in the morning, scrolling through dozens to hundreds of comments congratulating you on your discoveries.

One morning, you woke up to a new headline greeting you:

Asteroid Heading Toward Earth: Here Is How To Prepare.

"Huh," you asked yourself, sitting up on your elbow to scroll through the article. You read some more and discovered there were more calculations done overnight by the rest of the team after you left earlier the night before, calculations proving a change in direction.

It was then that you noticed the seven missed calls from your team members. You mentally cursed yourself for being a heavy sleeper.

You quickly called the team leader first, and they barely greeted you before asking you to come to the lab.

"What's the hurry?" Jay asked from the kitchen. You rushed behind him to place a chaste kiss to his cheek, heading to the door to slip on your shoes, with your bag almost falling from your shoulder in the process. "I'm making pancakes."

"Check the tabloids. It's bad."

He frowned. "Yeah, I saw," he said with an unreadable expression. For a situation so serious, his voice seemed to toe the line of mockery too closely. "There's no way it's real, love, don't worry about it."

You stopped in your tracks with your hand still on the handle. "Sorry?"

"Are you serious? An asteroid heading toward Earth?" He raised his eyebrows. "C'mon, we're not in a movie."

"This is serious..." you told him slowly. "Just 'cause it's the first time something like this has happened, doesn't mean it's not real—" You shook your head. "—Look, I have to go. I can tell you about it tonight."

And, sure enough, you spent the day proving the team's theories from the evening. The asteroid was surely coming toward Earth, in approximately nine weeks. At that moment, you weren't able to estimate the true extent of the damage that it would bring, but it would be bad, you knew that well enough.

Jay didn't.

"Don't be ridiculous, Y/N," he said.

You had to take a step back, close your eyes and take a deep breath to make sure you didn't scream. "You don't trust me." The statement was short, but garnered a large reaction.

"Excuse me?"

"That's what you're saying," you explained. "You don't believe my research. I can show you my notes, I can call the team leader for confirmation. Yet, you don't believe me."

He scoffed at you. Looking around, Jay sputtered out half-finished words, taken aback by your confrontation. "I trust you, Y/N, I just—"

"Just what?!" you interrupt, throwing your hands in frustration.

"Park Enterprises has already disproved it."

You wait for him to continue, but he looks at you as if that was enough explanation.

Out of pure disbelief, you let out a half-breathed laugh. "No, this is ridiculous," you throw his own statement back at him. Classically using his own words to turn the tables.

"My father's team has been tracking that exact same comet you're all after, and their studies show that it won't be coming near Earth, not by ages." It was unbelievable the absolute lack of hesitance in his voice. The confidence, which used to draw you into his arguments, repulsed you. "They have better funds for their research, it's much more developed."

This had you looking around for an audience, waiting to hear the laugh track in the background because his speech was straight out of a comedy. "You rather believe people who are solely in it for the money, people who completely disgrace their PhDs and the professors who taught them. Jay, we've laughed at them together because we both agreed they'd agree the Earth was flat if they were offered a large enough check!"

"Well, at least what they're saying now is much more realistic! Your studies don't even make sense."

"So, the date?" you ask him. "What–What was that about?"

He laughed. Laughed. "Obviously I'd take any excuse to spend time with you, love. Sure, you'd be disappointed that we didn't see anything, but I figured the night itself would've gone so well that it wouldn't have even mattered." He shrugged at the end of the words, clearly thinking that it was a given.

"I need you to leave," you told him slowly. You no longer had the energy to deal with a baseless argument. Surely you could get to him, just not then. "I need to be alone. Please."

And with that, he left.

Only a few text conversations were shared after your argument. Neither of you came forward to settle what had happened, talk it out.

Two months went by. Not seeing each other again, nor speaking in all the time that passed by.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

You look over your notes again, brows furrowed in concentration. Trying not to get distracted by the ticking of the clock, or your desk-neighbour sighing every few minutes, you scramble to find a sheet of paper you surely misplaced—because there's no way, no way that this is all you have. If it is....

Jake leans back in his chair and exhales loudly, and suddenly all hell breaks loose. "No way, no way..." you mumble over and over. "Shit! This can't be happening!"

He looks over at you in concern. You also start to hear the other scientists pushing back their own chairs, some turning around to look at what you're seeing. "Y/N? Everything okay?"

Wordlessly, or rather without any intelligible words shared, you turn your computer screen to his direction and hand him your papers.

Jake studies the notes quietly, looking up every once in a while to analyze the images and graphs from the screen to compare. Your hand instinctively comes up to your chest, trying to settle your heartbeat, if it's even possible. "Is this...." He doesn't finish. He understands.

You nod at him. Tears well up in your eyes.

"We'll send them up to Dr. Lee, and get his team to confirm everything," he eventually responds. His voice is clear, despite his own tears spilling. The other scientists come closer, leaning over Jake's shoulder, all reading until everyone is in the loop of what's going on—what's going to happen. He turns to them too. "In the meantime, we'll all go home. Spend time with your loved ones." It goes without saying that this is the last time everyone will be seeing each other.

Saying goodbye to the members of your research team is bittersweet, you learn.

Despite the pride you feel looking at them, considering everything you've learned and discovered together, it pulls at your heartstrings for it to come down to this. You almost wish you had never pursued this career path, wish you weren't even smart enough to come to these conclusions.

You hug Jake tightly at last. He's the one you've always been closest to, after all. "Thank you," he tells you, your face buried in his shoulder and finally letting the tears fall freely, since everyone else is gone. "For everything."

"You too," is all you say.

You hold onto each other for a few moments more when a pit forms in your stomach. Something different than the gnawing fear of knowing the end is near.

No, this is different.

Regret, you realize. Regret, with a mix of guilt.

You pull away from your coworker, a shaky smile on your lips that can't quite reach your eyes. "I have to go." And despite the ache of never seeing him again, you turn away from Jake for the last time and rush out of the building to your car.

As you're pulling out of the parking lot, soft melodies play from the speakers. You recognize the beat instantly.

My feet are aching and your back is pretty tired;

You resist the urge to pull to a stop and just let your eyes shut as you listen to the familiar tune. It'd be nice, but no. You know you have somewhere to be, and the radio coincidentally playing your—and his—song is only more proof that you need to do this.

And we've drunk a couple bottles, babe, and set our grief aside;

Driving down a road you've been through dozens of times brings up many old memories. You remember the first time Jay brought you to his parents' house, nervously fidgeting with your dress from the passenger's seat. He noticed immediately and placed his hand reassuringly on your thigh, risking taking his eyes off the road for a moment to meet with your eyes and ask silently: "Are you okay?"

You told him you were just fine, and that wasn't a lie.

The papers say it's doomsday, the button has been pressed;

Your phone buzzes from the compartment. Sparing a glance, you notice an alert glaring back at you, probably something along the lines of "Take immediate cover. Do not go outside. Protect yourselves."

The radio cuts out, nearly at the same time. The same announcement rings in your ears, so you swiftly turn down the volume and lean back into your seat.

You look through your blind spot for clear roads, and press the pedal harder.

We're gonna nuke each other up, boys, till old Satan stands impressed;

The nerves that have settled in the pit of your stomach ironically dissipate into a new wave of nostalgia instead as you pull onto the street, seeing the grand Park household in the distance.

Happy memories, although bittersweet, flood your mind, and you realize how grateful you are for having them.

At last, you make it to their driveway, relief washing over you when you see Jay's car parked right in front of yours. Clearly, he hasn't been staying at the apartment with you over the past couple months, so you just assumed he'd been staying at his parents' house during your time apart.

You know him well.

Walking up to the doorstep brings back a tremble to your limbs. You reach out with a shaky hand to the doorbell, ringing it once. Twice. And thrice—Like you always have.

It takes all but a moment for the door to open, when your eyes meet for the first time in forever.

"Y/N..."

And here it is, our final night alive;

It's been so long.

You could never forget what he looked like, not with his face still waking you up every morning on your phone screen. But still, seeing him in person again leaves you stunned.

"Hi." You hate the way your voice shakes on the syllable, but you conceal it with a nervous smile.

He doesn't look angry. If anything, he's surprised. Maybe even happy, if the way the corners of his mouth come up when you greet him says anything.

"Y/N," he repeats, disbelief leaking from his tone. "You're... here."

"I missed you," you say at the same time.

You share a quiet laugh before he steps aside and motions for you to come in. You follow him without hesitation.

Taking in his comfortably familiar scent that filters the air, you instinctively close your eyes when you make your way into the living room. You notice Jay doesn't sit down next to you on the couch immediately, so you awkwardly open one eye in a squint to find him standing across from you, with a small smile on his lips.

"What're you looking at?" you ask him with a teasing lilt.

"What are you doing here?"

"Have you checked the news?" Technically, you haven't either. But you know by now, from the announcement on your phone and the radio, it'll be all over every channel.

You watch Jay frown curiously and turn on the television. You're both welcomed with a pre-recorded video—as stated in the top right corner—of a newscaster anxiously fidgeting with her cue cards.

"—comet found and followed by a local research team associated with the Seoul National University is indeed heading toward Earth at a concerningly rapid rate." She pauses, looking over her notes and taking a breath. You can't imagine how it is to hear this news when you've been falsely led by the media for so long. "Park Entreprises have released a statement confirming their calculations."

You watch the colour drain from Jay's face.

"We have approximately seven hours before the asteroid collides with Earth, and causes severe to irreparable damage to the planet and all living organisms." A tear rolls down her cheek, she can no longer hold character. You notice the clip cut, before coming back, with the woman looking significantly more distraught; red in the face, tears staining her cheeks. "Please, everyone, spend this time with your loved ones. Stay safe. This has been Channel—"

Click. Jay shuts it off.

He stands in silence, staring at the blank screen. You watch him run his hand over his mouth anxiously, resisting the urge to get up and hold him.

"So... What—What does this mean?"

"The asteroid is much larger than we predicted, which means we gravely underestimated its speed." You keep your head down and voice low. You've been in this situation before and although you hate to admit it, you're afraid it won't be any different from the last time. "We thought we had at least another week before it came within radar, and with the size we had believed it was, it would've done damage, but nothing too extreme. We were wrong."

"And now we have roughly, what, seven hours before we..." He doesn't need to finish. You nod.

He runs a hand through his hair.

"I'm sorry."

"What?" You think you misheard him.

Jay makes his way toward you, situating himself comfortably on the couch and turning to take your hands in his own. "I said some pretty messed up things that I no longer stand by. I should've let you talk, and I should've had the decency to listen and, at the very least, try to understand."

It's nice, you discern. Hearing what you've been wanting to hear for months. "Thank you," is all you can think to say because, well, what else is there to say?

"I think I've known that my dad's team was hiding something, or purposefully miscalculating, but I chose to ignore it," he admits. "I was scared. Fuck, I'm still scared."

"Understandably, there's a literal asteroid headed towards Earth!"

You both laugh in agreement.

"I know it's probably way too late to ask you this considering we won't be alive by tomorrow, but can we please spend these last hours together as a couple?"

"Are you asking me to be your girlfriend," you tease. "Again?"

"Yes, Y/N." He rolls his eyes, but he isn't annoyed. You feel your heart pull at its strings when you see the familiar smile spread across his face again, something you haven't seen in a long time. "Will you be my girlfriend?"

"Of course."

You spend the first few hours helping him out in the kitchen. Jay explains that he's been there all day preparing a big meal for the family, as a surprise because they hadn't spent much time together as of late. It's much clearer to him why.

Together, you make a mess of the place. Not much with Jay's help, no. He's always been the better cook of the relationship. Clearly everyone has their specialities. You—in astrophysics and having the balls in the relationship, and him in the kitchen and being utterly stupid sometimes.

"So, is your dad coming over?" You toss a grape into your mouth, sitting on the counter top after giving up on actually helping. "He probably has some kind of vendetta against me, or something. At least I do."

Jay gives you a look.

"What," you draw out exaggeratedly. "We're scientific enemies. It's textbook betrayal."

"No, he won't be," Jay assures you. "I was hoping to make a meal for him and Mom, but one of their messengers told me they were leaving for a business trip tonight. Looks like that isn't gonna end well."

You frown. "I'm sorry..."

He shrugs it off and waves his hand. "No, no, don't be. I think I'd flip at him if I saw him, and I'd rather not spend my last moments in a screaming match with my father." He quickly washes his hands in the sink before wiping them against his apron to dry them off. "Besides, I'm here with you, and that's all that matters."

If you let a smile escape you, that's for no one to know.

The oven makes a ding! which prompts you to hop off the counter, Jay swiftly catching your movement and letting you fall into his arms. You laugh as you notice his dirty hand hovering over your body to not touch your clothes.

"Do you want to help me plate this?"

As expected, the meal is delicious. Even the burnt edges caused by your excess lathering of butter were more than salvageable. It's nothing like a grand meal at a three Michelin star restaurant, but it's damn near close enough.

You furrow your brows as you take another bite—you can't help looking angry when the food tastes good!

Jay notices. "You like it?" he asks, but not genuinely. His smile hints that he already knows.

You simply hum in response.

The rest of the meal passes by in comfortable silence. Comfortable as either of you can be.

There's some tension in the air. A mix of fear, worry, maybe even curiosity.

How else are you meant to feel on your final night alive?

Once both your plates are cleared, Jay's quick to reach and grab the dishes. You follow him to the sink with whatever else he couldn't hold and help him wash them.

You watch him thoroughly scrub at a plate that's already spotless. You don't interrupt him.

In the meantime, you clear the table. Push the chairs. Rearrange the center piece. Even take out the broom and start sweeping the main floor.

You're not sure why. It's not like it really matters. All of this will be whipped out in a few hours.

A shiver runs down your back, and you decide that you're finished cleaning.

"You wanna watch a movie?"

You settle yourselves in his bed once the dishes are done. Jay toys around with the projector before turning back to you, his face twisting in an unserious grimace.

"Oh, right," he says pointedly. "I forgot you only started dating me for my projector."

"What can I say, the richer the man, the more attractive he is." Yet, even if he didn't have a dime to his name, you would still find Jay to be the most handsome man on this dying Earth. "Come here."

Normally, he'd probably tease you for your clinginess. He'd say something along the lines of your hands being covered in glue, or make a dumb joke about magnets.

Today, though, he doesn't hesitate for a second before diving under the covers next to you, wrapping his arm over your shoulders and pulling you even closer.

It feels good, but also makes reality set in.

He feels you let out a shaky breath. "It'll be okay, love," he whispers before placing a long kiss on top of your head.

The opening credits start to roll. You try to take note of all the actors you recognize, try to remember in what movies and series you've seen them in. It calms you down. Then your mind drifts, and you start to worry about what those actors might be doing right now.

Do they know the world is ending in less than four hours? Do they know that no matter where they hide, there's no way to protect themselves?

Jay runs a finger through your hair. Your thoughts hush.

As the camera pans to the main character wiping the back counter at the diner she works at, you look up at your boyfriend. His eyes are fixed on the screen, but you can tell he's not entirely paying attention either.

You shift your position to face him better, still lying comfortably on his arm. "Why didn't you go to culinary school?" The question's been on your mind since he told you about applying for business, but you never had the guts to ask him, already being able to guess the answer.

It's always been known that Jay loves to cook. He's always found experimenting, stepping outside of the box (or the cookbook) to try new things to suit his palette. It was one of the first things you two bonded over when you started dating way back then.

You remember the first time you went to his apartment. Already from the entrance, your senses were filled with the sweet smell of pastries and fresh meat. A combination that wasn't too shabby at all.

He'd been cooking and baking all afternoon, not sure what to focus on because he wasn't familiar with your preferences yet. "Just to be safe," he had specified.

Now, his brows furrowed in thought.

"It wouldn't have worked out," he says finally.

He lightly butts his head into yours. "Doesn't matter now, does it?"

Your eyes drift down from his eyes, to his lips, to the birthmark on his neck, to your hands fidgeting with the blanket. "This is really it," you whisper into the air.

"This really is it," Jay repeats.

To think, you had planned a night with your friends for this exact event. You'd be all gathered on the rooftop, set up on lawn chairs and the terrace sofas, with an abundance of snacks, music from your shared playlist, laughter and cheer filling the air as you all watch the sky, waiting for a star, that isn't really a star, to run through the blankness, just a little brighter than everything else.

And then you would go about your lives.

Heeseung and his girlfriend would celebrate their two year anniversary.

Maybe Jake would finally gain the courage to ask the barista out on a date.

Everyone would say goodbye to Sunghoon again as he'd head off on another skating tour—or whatever the athlete does.

Jay would eventually inherit his father's business. But out of everything, that would probably take the longest. Mr. Park wasn't planning on going anywhere any time soon. Clearly he was hoping so, too.

You.... You're not so sure about yourself.

After discovering one major comet, you'd move onto the next, you supposed.

People don't ever really stop discovering things about the universe. So much of the planet you live on has gone undiscovered, let alone the infinite plane of space and time.

You bite the inside of your cheek at the thought of the millions of things that will forever be left undiscovered, until another species comes to life and starts all the way from the beginning. You realize that maybe that's the point of it all; No one is ever meant to see the end of it.

Maybe it's the moments in between that matter the most.

So, you wrap your arm around Jay's waist a little tighter. You let the voices on the screen fade away as you take in his scent, the movement of his chest as he breathes in and out, and the soft way he strokes your hair.

You tell him I love you without words, hoping he hears it, and fall asleep before you can hear him say, "I love you too."

And as the Earth burns to the ground, it's you that I lie with—It's you I welcome death with.

[whereserpentswalk]

Choose a slightly diffrent version of our world to escape to

Weather you're transferring yourself to another dimension or you’re retroactively changing our world is a matter of perspective. Either way, only you will remember the change, and all your loved ones will still exist with as minimal a change to everyone's lives as possible. Transplaner security does not allow the finer details of this process to be understood by mortals.

1- ritual magic and deities are scientifically proven to exist. The exact details on it all are still ambiguous but people know for a fact that these things work and are true. Religious conflict is down, and it's a fact that there's something out there to answer your prayers.

2- the earth is flat and infinite. The seven continents we know are lit by the sun (which is small and goes out at night) which rotates over the equator (the north pole is the center of this map projection). But there are other suns beyond Antarctica, and 21st century civilization is working to contact these other continents. We will never be done expanding our trades routes and exploring for better or for worse.

3- dragons exist. They split off from a difftent fish than other land vertebrates hence the six limbs. There are all different kinds of dragons, living throughout the world. There's nothing magical about them, they just exist.

4- the six continents we know of with humans are just six islands in a vast ocean. Most of human history is the same or similar, just much higher density, thought the same cultures and civilizations developed. Because the population is the same human territory is a single massive city, using unquine technology to harvest food. What exists on the rest of the earth is just starting to be known.

5- necromancers exist as a valid field of art and science. Zombies, ghosts, vampires, liches, shades and other such creatures all exist as functioning members of society. Everyone accepts this as good and normal.

6- humans are capable of using willpower to change their physical sex after completing puberty. The process takes about six months to complete, and is mostly painless. Alongside swapping your sex it's also possible to mix and match traits or completely get rid of the traits of either sex. There is stigma around this, but it's slowly gaining more acceptance as time goes on. Body type and eye color can also be changed similarly, and how old you look is somewhat fluid based on your desires.

7- every rocky planet in our solar system and most large moons have sentient life. We are slowly making further and further contact with those civilizations.

8- the world is slightly more progressive on basically every issue. It's far from perfect but our world looks like an exacerbated parody of their world's political and social problems.

9- humans don't make contact when they mate, like fish or scorpians. Nobody has sex or desires sex in any way, and human bodies have a lot less sexual dimorphism. Gender is more fluid, sexual assault and harassment can't happen, and physical affection is way more common.

10- humans live longer (the oldest people are in their 900s) and resist illness much better. They have stronger mote athletic bodies, and have appearances that resemble closer what they individually think is pretty. They also need to sleep a lot less and have higher pain tolerance.

11- gender as a concept doesn't exist. People are biologically the same, they just don't have any social construct of male and female. People generally dress similarly to what we'd consider masculine, and he is the default pronoun, but feminine things aren't rejected, or even categorized as feminine. Relationships also aren't considered platonic romantic or family, people are just close to eachother and there's no special word for certain kind of close relationship that's different from others in a socially enforced way.

12- there's a whole new complex set of social constructs that didn't exist in the world you know. This is bad mabye.

Reblog to begin the transportation. Like to awake one of your freinds to the reality of the changes.

[thoughtlessthinkythoughts]

Look, I would love to believe that Gerry is having a perfect time in an alternate universe, but I can’t. Something is up. Note: I’m using some info from the arg spreadsheet for this.

Cw for unethical psychology experiments and harm to children.

He claims to have been too young to remember, but according to the spreadsheet he is two years older than Sam. Of course they probably weren’t tested at the same time, but his development level indicates he was school-aged.

He says he just remembers filling out forms and answering questions. The spreadsheet indicates that they put the kids through the Milgram experiment (you know, the giving electric shocks to people one)

He is happy to invite strangers in first thing in the morning and offer them anything- food, a large painting, etc. This goes beyond typical hospitality/generosity.

He even thinks the landlord is lovely. And yes I think this is a hint considering TMA’s politics.

Gerry immediately considers strangers old friends.

I may be reading the spreadsheet wrong because it is ambiguous. But if I am correct, when tested Gerry was ranked very prosocial, but also wasn’t compliant with the Milgram test or a test of social conformity (the one where a bunch of people lie about the length of a line to see if the person being tested will agree with something obviously wrong). The Gerry we met seems very compliant.

Gertrude is eager to get rid of Sam and Celia, which is completely understandable, but I think there is more to it. She knows something and wants this away from Gerry.

The little “I like them” “of course you do” exchange. It isn’t much on it’s own, but altogether…I don’t think Gerry has a choice. Not in liking them or being generous. I think Gerry was so close to being what they wanted, but he wouldn’t comply with some things, so they…somehow made him compliant.

According to the spreadsheet, Gerry had the second highest empathy index. The only individual higher was Sam. And I think we can assume Sam’s results are significant, considering he is a main character. Sam’s results were similar to Gerry’s in almost every way…except that Sam was given opposite results in the social conformity and obedience measures. In general, as empathy, moral development, and prosocial behavior increased in the kids, milgram and asch scores were lower, which is why I believe low=not going along with them.

So, the institute was looking for kids who were highly empathetic but also easy to control. Until they found Sam, Gerry was the closest, so they tried to control him. And ended up damaging him badly and messing with his memory of what happened.

[southside-otaku]

Just Too Sweet

Synopsis- You were such an angel, always the good girl, however you had a tendency to hangout with the “bad kids” in school. Your close friends, Emma and Mikey, have always been there for you as is the rest of the gang so it’s only natural you hangout at their house often. No one said you would be falling in love with your friend’s older brother.

Inspired by “Too Sweet” by Hozier, because it plagues my mind daily but I love it!

TW: Age gap, best friend’s brother trope, kinda angst I guess, ambiguous ending, reader wants Shin but he doesn’t wanna corrupt her life, I think that’s it sorry if this is kinda rusty lol x3 proof read but also not lmfao

It was a normal morning after sleeping over your friend Emma’s house, you’ve been around her and her brothers since childhood. You tend to wake up after Emma but she stays to herself in bed before she has to make breakfast so you venture out in hopes to help your friend set up the kitchen.

Shin’s awake and already chilling in the living room when y/n gets there. “You’re quite the early bird today” she says not knowing that in truth he hadn’t slept hardly at all last night.

He replies with a soft smile and small chuckle “yeah, well the guys and I were out late at Wakasas’ apartment.”

Y/n looks at the older boy knowing now that him being out late meant he probably didn’t sleep a wink. She scolds him, explaining how he needs to take better care of himself and try to get some sleep every once in a while.

Shin always appreciates your worry for his health, you take good care of yourself from your hair to your clothes and especially that oh so sweet innocence in your eyes. He prays no one takes that away from you

After breakfast you head to Emma’s room to get your clothes on for the day. Mikey, Emma, and friends call you from outside to see if you’re ready. “Stop flirting with Shin and get your butt out here already!” Senju yells. Y/n blushes, not like they both didn’t realize that there was SOMETHING between them that was a little different from just being the older brother and you being his siblings’ friend.

Y/n rushes out the door waving and shouting a “see ya ‘round! Please make sure to eat and drink water!!” before closing the door behind her. Now Shin is left to his thoughts again, the ones he loves and loathes at the same time.

A couple days later you’re all at Mikey’s again planning to go out to some arcade. Everyone is laughing and chatting. Shinichiro is lounging on the sofa again, staring unabashedly at y/n. Thoughts race through his mind about how stunning she is when she throws her head back in laughter, that sweet smile gracing her tender features. Now Shinichiro has had his eyes on a plethora of women before, which he has had no such luck with at all, but y/n…she was so perfect. So perfect in fact that he even knew her parents thought highly of her, so much so that he knows for a fact that they would certainly not approve of an older man whom also used to run a large biker gang as her lover.

His thoughts are pulled away by loud knocking resonating through the living room. As he strides to the front door he can feel y/n’s eyes on him-even for just a moment-and he’s frozen, hand on the doorknob, as if in a spell.

Shinichiro finally opens the door to allow his friends inside. Benkei and Wakasa giving each other knowing glances once they see Mikey and ALL of his friends, especially the sweet, curly headed girl sat by the glass doors to the backyard; it’s as if the sun’s rays highlighter her innocence.

It’s late by the time y/n comes back with Mikey, Emma, Draken, and Senju. Everyone decides to spend the night again at the Sanos’ and they soon head to their respective rooms.

Shin and his friends are all in the garage talking while smoking or having a drink.

Takeomi blows out a puff of smoke,”I know something’s on your mind man, you only drink that stuff when your mind is in a fog.” All eyes are on the two brunette boys now, waiting to see how they respond to each other. Takeomi is the first to speak again, “so where’s that little bunny you’ve been eyeing?”

Shin closes his eyes before twirling around his glass of whisky, “I let her go.” He looks up at ceiling, “there’s no way I deserve something as sweet as her, no matter how badly I want her.”

Wakasa blows smoke off to the side then looks up at his friend from his seat on the floor, “then why’s she heading this way with your little brother?”

Shinichiro looks out the window to see y/n, bewilderment in his eyes, as she races toward him like a bride to her groom. Are the two willing to take the risk? Surprising himself, he stands, placing his empty whiskey cup down and heads toward the door, swinging it open to let the younger girl into his embrace with open arms. It was just so natural to him. Like it was everything he ever wanted.

~wanted to thank @i-literally-cant-with-this for letting me ask for a proof read of the outline for this :) thanks babes!~

[gravitysgone]

My religious unconversion - That's a word right?

With the windchill factor it currently feels like -29 Celsius or -20 Fahrenheit - There is an accumulation of about 3 to 4 feet of snow on the ground.

There are approximately 750 homeless in my city (that is an "official" number, so it is probably higher) and there are 137 shelter beds. That means there are over 600 homeless humans in my not particularly large town (population 160,000).

And guess how many are being housed in the churches that are all around the city?

ZERO - not one. There are more people being housed in generous and caring strangers homes than are being housed in the very places that are built on the tenets of a faith that stoically tell of a savior and namesake - Jesus. A namesake that repeatedly tells to give to the poor, clothe the poor, house the poor, care for the sick, love the unloved and so on...you all know the gist.

Yet 600 people are in life threatening weather and conditions in their very own community and there is zero effort being practically made to help. They may donate some of their money and resources to social services and charities. But that all just smacks of thoughts and prayers.

And I am ashamed of myself, I have participated in these churches. I have swallowed my words and my moral compass. I have been silently accepting of the excuses they make for not helping. For how there is only so much they can do. And look at the laws and logistics. it just wouldn't work.

But Jesus never said help the poor, within the limits of laws and logistics. He was quite clear in his teachings. To follow him you must care for your neighbors and care for the poor. There's no ambiguity there. Look that shit up. Seriously Google Jesus and the poor.

This is the multipurpose space in "my" church, a church I have been connected to for 20 years -

It serves as worship space, gymnasium, gathering room etc. It is the size of a high school gymnasium. And without any sense of irony is fronted by a stage that prominently says JESUS! It could easily house 150 people for the night. More if you wanted. It has an industrial kitchen attached to it and there are smaller classrooms surrounding it.

There is a Montessori school that rents an area of three rooms and a bathroom as well. Also, there is a large and very under used lot surrounding the church. Which would be perfect to offer safe and organized safe haven to people who may not want to live inside and keep their tents. There are bathroom facilities and space for any other needs. There is even a house converted to office space on the same property. All of which could be easily borrowed or temporarily used to service the homeless. But again they are full of excuses. And reasons. And "You got to understand". According to advocates we are up to 8 weather related deaths in my city so far this winter. 8 more than should ever have happened. Also numerous visits to the ER for frostbite, exposure and hypothermia. So many visits, that the local doctors whom staff the ER have all signed a letter to the city and county to do more to house the homeless because it is not only a tragedy but a heavy burden on the already overburdened ER.

I can provide links and connections and facts to back any of this up. And I can provide this - Jesus' own words

So Jeff what is the point of all this? We know this. We see this. Everyone knows that churches are not doing the work they claim to for the most part. This sounds like more of your inane blathering. Well the point is I have made my choice. I am not feeling any particular connection to the god they talk of. Or religious elevation. I was attending church because I have no one else. It was a community. A place that knew me and accepted me....To some degree.

I was never fully embraced.

So I am leaving and not going back again. I have friends I am connected to. But they are not really friends. They live locally, but when I have been crazy or hungry or lonely or sitting in an ER, not one of them has come to sit with me, none have offered to take me to and from appointments or to just hang out. So I am not really losing friends anyway. My involvement ends now. I cannot in good consciousness with my presence there give tacit agreement with their ideology and dogma. It started with the gay question. My daughter is gay. And every time I went I felt on some level i was betraying her.

Because the church I belong(ed) to has a national policy that does not condone or accept same-sex marriage. Nor does it ordain gay ministers. It also says they will treat gays and transgender with care and compassion and acceptance. But that they hope that through a relationship with god they would see that their lifestyle is not in accordance to biblical teaching. So you queers, we will let you come to our church and participate, but our endgame is that you reject your sinful ways. Because you don't love like we love. And I felt like a hypocrite. Not only for my daughter but for myself. When I was younger and wilder, I sucked a dick or two and so on. And messed around outside of traditional hetrosexual relationships. I found over time that while it was sexually enjoyable and exciting. It was not emotionally connecting for me and I realized I am pretty much straight. And a boring vanilla straight. I find emotionally and sexually and mentally I connect more deeply and fulfillingly with the opposite sex. Women. Including transgender women. So it felt like a huge hypocrisy on my part. Never mind all the times the pastors looked at me like the idiot child who they must tolerate but as soon as he lets go of their sleeve they go wash their hands lest they be fouled with me. The current pastors are the worst for it. They talk to me like I am a petulant child and I need to go play so the adults may go and be adults. And the church members who would no more have me in their homes as they would let a rabid dog inside. Or they look at me as a charity case (motherfucker I know I am but still...) and there's that look that says 'Oh you poor dear, you are such a sad story' and they push off to go have brunch at a nice restaurant and forget me ten minutes later. It's like they need me there to feel good about themselves and their church. But please...don't stand too close. And every time I have stated any of this even in a gentle and watered down way, I get "Who did that?" or "Give me an example", this is a tactic often used to gaslight people in relationships too. Because the next step is to tell you it's all in you. It's just you being paranoid and mentally ill. But how does a person explain a feeling and sense. Like the feeling they get from someone or the energy they feel towards them from a group or organization. You can't, it isn't possible. Because people are fucking brilliant at pretending to be loving and kind and never letting the truth show, especially in a church or religious environment. That's why so many sick men have used churches as a way and tool for farming victims. So yeah...Fuck you! I feel what I feel. And I am leaving. No more. If I am going to be made to feel unwanted and I am going to belong to a group that does nothing to help people and I am going to have people tisk tisk my child's sexuality...I might as well join a sewing circle or birding club. At least there I can learn a skill. I have been the worst of kind. The cruelest and meanest and selfishest and deceptive and neediest...so needy. Still the one thing that always kept me in tune and driving forward and kept me alive was a sometimes deeply buried, but always present moral compass and personal code. And that part of me is telling me I am not doing the right thing by participating and accepting the church's belief system. I am not holding to my beliefs and standards. So I am out. Jesus was a good guy as John Prine once said. He didn't need this shit. Prine said that too. But his followers, while maybe not all bad, are not really cutting the mustard seed. If you know what I mean. I got off on a rant maybe but I needed badly to say this out loud and nobody likes me or listens to me anymore so I write shit here...At least when I am ignored here I can blame it on the post being too long and not on the fact that as a human I am garbage. Thanks if you read this. It may not seem important to you. But it is to me. And it will matter in the end. My end.

[darlingpwease]

Yandere omega Hualian who keep get rejected by they alpha but still made they nest just for them to comfortable

fanciful

it depends enough on how dark the world of omegaverse is, especially at that time, but we will go for now with the most innocent without forced rituals and the like

♡ unhealthy behaviour, animalistic behaviour, dommale elements, mention of forced relationship if you squint

when you reject them, XIE LIAN and HUA CHENG are not very... happy. of course, alphas have the right to decide for themselves who they want and all that, but isn't it obvious that they will be the best options? one of them is the Supreme rank ghost, the other is one of the most powerful (if not the most powerful) God — even if it's a little difficult for them to have a baby, it doesn't mean they can't, and your instincts know it. when you have two strong and healthy omegas who are equally obsessive interested in you and are willing to put up with each other's existence as long as you don't forget about them, paying attention to everyone and not behaving with irrational favoritism towards only one.

HUA CHENG has a strong instinct to nest. maybe this is due to an anxious childhood, where the nest was the only place where he felt safe, but for him to nest regularly and create large nests is natural for all three, — especially considering that XIE LIAN has not shown such an active interest in building a nest since childhood, although after he was banned from Heaven the first time, he began actively making them in an attempt to recreate the same feeling as in his parents' nest.

moreover, your smells are mutually attractive, XIE LIAN has a pronounced parental instinct, HUA CHENG knows that even if you consider him unattractive, from a biological point of view, he can easily change his appearance and some shades of smell for greater attractiveness, they have many nests and beautiful things for you, while your personalities are compatible and your temperaments are in harmony — you have no reason to refuse them, but you do it anyway, behaving senselessly and mercilessly.

you deny them but they make a nest for you

... when they build a nests for you, it's more like an olive branch that they hold out to you, the denial of which has ambiguous but definitely very unpleasant consequences for you and for them (as if they care if they can't be your omegas) — a soft, large, fluffy, warm nest with a predominantly neutral smell but with inclusions their fragrances so that you know for sure that it was built by them. you know that they are watching your interaction and research, memorizing your reactions and behavior so that if you deny this nest, they will build a new and more suitable one.

if you deny the nest, making it clear that you did not like it, then next time you will get a more perfect and suitable one for you — and so it will be until you have nothing to complain about, looking at the perfect nest, and, in the end, giving up and settling in it. this will lead to the fact that they will create more such nests, using more and more of their clothes with a smell so that you have suitable associations, until, eventually, you begin to agree to make out with them in the nest.

if you continue to deny all the nests out of stubborn principle, or, even more so, try to break them, then, well, you knew what you were doing, doing this in front of the omegas who adored you, who could spend hours just to do it for you, — and the fact that they are both potentially stronger than you and definitely the two of them are stronger than one of you makes the situation even worse just for you...

you deny them but make a nest for them

XIE LIAN looks on, thinking before nodding. of course, it is — why would you build a nest for them if you don't make it clear that you think they are good enough, but just want more time to get used to them? this is logical and makes sense.

they sit in the nest, surrounded by your scent, and look at you with incomprehensible interest if you stay outside the nest instead of leaving them for a while, doing your business without their participation. your mixed signals are very confusing — do you refuse them, but at the same time build a nest? what's the point of that? — but then they get it while they're curled up.

... they're just courting, aren't they? — HUA CHENG is the first to raise this thought, and XIE LIAN looks at him with interest, finally finding the reason for your behavior. — they're just shy, but they're not really against us, since they build a nest for us and let us be in it. they just need time.

and they don't mind giving you that time — behaving even more gently and affectionately, trying to look like respectful and good omegas as your husbands. they become even more persistent, but in a gentle way, actively taking care of the house and about you, showing that choosing them would not be a bad step and that they are ready to do anything to be your omegas, since they adore you and you are the only one for them.

do you need time? they are ready to give as much as they want! after all, you are in any case already their alpha, who can only be with them and has already chosen them, so nothing else matters; they have been waiting for you for a long time, a couple more days or months do not matter as long as they can be near you...

[justforbooks]

Alain Delon

One of the most popular male stars of French cinema who often played tough guys and calculated killers

The actor Alain Delon, with his finely chiselled features and glacial gaze, was known as the “ice cold angel”. As a young man, his handsome, impassive face was a blank page on which apparently any emotion could be written. This served to cover the passion or perversity beneath, a trait used effectively by such directors as Luchino Visconti, Louis Malle, Joseph Losey, Jean-Pierre Melville and Michelangelo Antonioni.

Delon’s best work was done in the 1960s and 70s, the first two decades of a career spanning half a century. After this exciting initial period, he settled down, with occasional exceptions, to consolidating his tough-guy persona, becoming one of the most popular male stars in French cinema.

In the light of his unpromising background, Delon, who has died aged 88, deserved the success he achieved. Born in Sceaux, a large suburb in the south of Paris, he was the son of Edith (nee Arnold) and Fabien Delon. They divorced when Alain was four, and he was brought up by foster parents until they died in a car accident. He then moved back to live with his mother and her new husband, Paul Boulogne, a butcher, to whom Delon was unhappily apprenticed when he was 14.

This was soon after he completed his sporadic education, having been expelled from several schools for bad behaviour. At 17, he joined the French navy, serving in Indochina as a parachutist during the siege of Dien Bien Phu.

Out of his four years in the military, Delon spent 11 months in prison for being “undisciplined”. In 1956, after being dishonourably discharged, he returned to civilian life, working as a porter, a waiter and a salesman. During this time he became friends with the actors Brigitte Auber and Jean-Claude Brialy, and went with them to the 1957 Cannes film festival.

There, his looks attracted attention, especially from a talent scout for the producer David O Selznick, who offered him a Hollywood contract, provided that he learned English. But after Auber persuaded the director Yves Allégret to cast the young would-be actor in Quand la Femme s’en Mêle (When a Woman Meddles, 1957), Delon decided to start acting in France.

Surrounded by such veterans as Edwige Feuillère, Jean Servais and Bernard Blier, Delon, looking much younger than 22, made an impression as a hitman, the sort of role he perfected in later films. Despite being touted as France’s answer to James Dean, Delon was closer to the young Alan Ladd.

In Sois Belle Et Tais-Toi (Be Beautiful But Shut Up, 1958), directed by Marc Allégret, Yves’s older brother, Delon was cast as a petty crook, partnered by Jean-Paul Belmondo, who was to equal Delon in popularity in the 60s and 70s. They were later to appear together again in Borsalino (1970), Borsalino and Co (1974) and as sexagenarian action heroes in Une Chance sur Deux (Half a Chance, 1998).

Christine (1958), a love story set in Vienna at the turn of the century, gave Delon his first major role as a romantic lead, opposite Romy Schneider. During the shooting of the film – a remake of Max Ophüls’ Liebelei (1932) – the couple fell in love and became engaged soon afterwards. The romance lasted four years, and Delon and Schneider remained close until her death in 1982. They appeared together on stage in 1961 in a Parisian production of ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore, directed by Visconti, as well as in the films La Piscine (The Swimming Pool, 1969) and Losey’s The Assassination of Trotsky (1972).

It was in 1960 that Delon became an international star with his portrayal of Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley in René Clément’s Plein Soleil (Purple Noon). With his pretty-boy looks, Delon perfectly reflected the calculated charm, indolence and coldness of the ambiguous character, who schemes to take his friend’s clothes, yacht, girlfriend and life.

In contrast, in the same year, Visconti cast him as a “wise fool” in Rocco and His Brothers, an epic three-hour neorealist drama. To save his poverty-stricken family, who have immigrated to Milan from southern Italy, Rocco (Delon) takes up boxing, a sport he detests. Dubbed into Italian, Delon does his best to convince as a saintly character, though it is doubtful whether any boxer could be so gentle and yet so successful.

Dubbed again into Italian, Delon was superb as an arrogant and materialistic stockbroker who has an affair with a translator (Monica Vitti) in L’Eclisse (Eclipse, 1962), the third in Antonioni’s trilogy of alienation. Delon’s third notable Italian film was Visconti’s The Leopard (1963), in which he played the dashing and cynical young revolutionary Tancredi. As a hotheaded opportunist who represents the future of Italy, Delon’s performance is in sharp contrast to Burt Lancaster’s contemplative one as his aristocratic uncle, who represents the past.

Back in France, Delon began to take on less challenging roles, mostly in swashbucklers and thrillers. The main interest of the conventional heist movie, Mélodie en Sous-Sol (Any Number Can Win, 1963), was the coming together of the biggest French star of the 30s, Jean Gabin, and the rising star of the 60s. As interesting was his pairing with Simone Signoret, 14 years his senior, in The Widow Couderc (1971).

Delon also appeared in several English-language films at the time, including The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964), in which he was an Italian photographer cum gigolo making a play for a gangster’s moll (Shirley MacLaine), and a Spanish aristocrat in the comedy-western Texas Across the River (1966). At the time, Delon could claim to be an equal in fame to any movie star in large-budget films such as Once a Thief (1965), opposite Ann-Margret and Jack Palance; Lost Command (1966), a war film with Anthony Quinn and George Segal; and Red Sun (1971) with Charles Bronson and Toshiro Mifune, cashing in on Delon’s huge popularity in Japan.

In the artily erotic The Girl on a Motorcycle (1968), directed and photographed by Jack Cardiff, Delon played Marianne Faithfull’s lover, unzipping her leather gear with his teeth and murmuring: “Your toes are like tombstones.”

In 1964 Delon married Nathalie Barthélémy, who made her screen acting debut opposite him in Melville’s Le Samouraï (1967), the first of three ritualistic and atmospheric crime thrillers directed by Melville and starring Delon. In Le Samouraï, he was an expressionless hired killer; in Le Cercle Rouge (1970), he was a cool ex-con; and in Un Flic (Dirty Money, 1972), Melville’s final film, he was equally effective as a bitter cop.

Delon’s standing as a screen tough guy was enhanced when, in 1968, he and his wife, whom he was about to divorce, were implicated in a sensational political scandal. The discovery of the corpse of his bodyguard Stevan Marković in a rubbish dump – he had been shot in the head – led to revelations of drug and sex orgies involving a host of personalities from the world of politics and show business, including the wife of the president, Georges Pompidou.

Delon’s friend, the Corsican gangster François Marcantoni, was charged as an accessory to murder but was later released due to lack of evidence. Both Alain and Nathalie were held for questioning, but were not accused. What had alerted police was a letter Marković sent to his brother in which he wrote: “If I get killed, it’s 100% the fault of Alain Delon and his godfather François Marcantoni.”

In the same year, Delon began a 15-year relationship with the actor Mireille Darc, with whom he co-starred in Jeff (1969), the first film made by his own company, Adel, and a few other pictures.

During the same period, under Malle’s direction, he portrayed William Wilson, an Austrian officer and gambler, who murders his doppelganger, in one of three segments based on Edgar Allan Poe stories in Spirits of the Dead (1968).

Another of his outstanding performances was the title role of Losey’s Mr Klein (1976), as a French-Catholic art dealer who is mistaken for a Jew of the same name during the occupation in 1942. Unable to convince the Gestapo of the mistaken identity, he is deported.

Many years later, Delon claimed to be a supporter of the far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen. “He is dangerous for the political set because he’s the only one who’s sincere,” Delon declared. “He says out loud what many people think, and what the politicians refrain from saying because they are either too demagogic or too chicken. Le Pen, with all his faults and qualities, is probably the only one who thinks about the interests of France before his own.”

In the 80s, Delon, already a producer of a dozen movies, tried his hand at directing. His two films, Pour la Peau d’un Flic (For a Cop’s Hide, 1981) and Le Battant (The Fighter, 1983), were pale imitations of Melville. But, in 1984, Delon was given two of his last chances to display his acting talents. In Bertrand Blier’s Notre Histoire (Our Story), he was a morose alcoholic, and, in one of the most surprising casting decisions, he played the decadent gay dandy Baron de Charlus in Volker Schlöndorff’s Swann in Love, based on the first volume of Marcel Proust’s novel.

Following his dual role in Jean-Luc Godard’s Nouvelle Vague (1990), and a number of poorly received films, Delon announced his decision to retire from acting in 1997, although he did star in a television cop series, Frank Riva (2003-04), and made an unexpected appearance as Julius Caesar in Asterix at the Olympic Games (2008). A final TV role came in the drama Une Journée Ordinaire (2011), and he appeared as himself in S Novym Godom, Mamy! (2012), the story of a Russian New Year’s Eve, and Disclaimer (2019), as a talkshow guest.

An honorary Palme d’Or in 2019 provoked complaints against Delon’s history of misogynistic comments and support for the far right. The Cannes festival responded that its concern lay with achievement in cinema: “We’re not going to give (him) the Nobel peace prize.” Also that year came the video release of the song, Paroles, Paroles, that had given the singer Dalida and him a hit in 1973.

Delon, who became a Swiss citizen after many years’ residence in Geneva, with a second home in Douchy, south of Paris, spent most of his later years as president of a company that produced a variety of products such as perfume, wristwatches, clothing and sunglasses, all with the label AD.

The Velvet Underground singer Nico said that Delon was the father of her son Ari, though he denied it – the boy was adopted by Delon’s mother and stepfather, and took their surname, Boulogne; he died in 2023. Delon is survived by his son, Anthony, from his first marriage, and his children, Anouchka and Alain-Fabien, from his second marriage, to Rosalie van Breemen, which ended in divorce in 2002.

🔔 Alain Fabien Maurice Marcel Delon, actor and producer, born 8 November 1935; died 18 August 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[adobe-outdesign]

Shelmet/karrablast lines review?

I'm going to preface this review by stating that I HATE trade-only evolutions. I'll spare you all from an extensive ramble, but the tl;dr is that they're obnoxious, counter-productive, and ultimately only serve to make it harder to get certain Pokemon.

HOWEVER, with that said, these two lines are the only time the idea of a trade-evo actually seems justified due to the way the two interact with each other. It's still not my favorite thing in the world (I feel like they could just evolve by being placed next to each other in one's party), but at least there's a rationale behind it instead of just abritrary decisions on the part of GameFreak.

Anyway, all that aside, I really like Shelmet here, and it's probably my favorite out of these four. The snail combined with a knight theme is super simple but reads really clearly, and the droopy eye and silly mouth give it a lot of personality. The colors are also nice, with the pinks and greens popping nicely against the neutral gray shell.

My only nitpick is related to the typing—this should've been bug/steel, for reasons we'll get into later.

Accelgor has a completely different, more ninja-esc theme, but this makes sense due to the loss of its shell, which was where all the knight theming came from in the first place.

This design is also good—the lines on the head accent the swirled shape nicely, which is also fairly accurate to how a shell-less snail looks. The pinks and greens once again draw attention to the head, and the brooding expression is great.

I'll admit though, something about the lower body throws me a bit. The body being bandaged to make up for the lack of a shell is great, but the actual shape of the body is so... flat and rigid compared to the nice curves of its head. Maybe if it curled a bit at the bottom too it would have a better flow. The bandages are also a bit too dark in color, loosing some of the contrast Shelmet's lighter gray had. Still, it's decent and gets the idea across well enough.

Gotta admit, I'm not a big fan of Karrablast. The idea of a beetle Pokemon makes perfect sense because it's based off of various kinds of beetles that eat snails and/or pupate in their shells, but Karrablast is just so amorphous and generic that you'd be hard pressed to even recognize it as a beetle, which really makes the theme fall apart a bit. Maybe it's just a me thing, as I'm not big on Pokemon with more "ambiguous" body shapes like this.

I also think it should've had more to do with Accelgor thematically. Escavalier "steals" Shelmet's knight theme, so I feel like Karrablast should've also had a ninja-ish theme to match Accelgor.

All that aside, it's okay. The expression is at least a lot of fun with its little fangs, and the colors contrast nicely compared to the Shelmet line's, but the light blue triangle on the head feels out of place and I'm not a big fan of the weird head-pincers. At the end of the day, it's not terrible, but it does feel like the weak link in this line.

Escavalier, however, is pretty fun. Expanding on Shelmet's knight theme, it now has a pair of lances and a large area on top of the helmet somewhat evocative of a feathered headpiece. The shape of this headpiece also helps match with the bottom half of the shell with its curved shape. Overall, a fun execution.

I do think it could've been a bit stronger conceptually though. For one, Shelmet mostly keeps the same palette as it evolves, so it feels like the red accents on Escavalier should've been blue to match its pre-evo; it would also simplify the palette, seeing as it already has Karrablast's blues and yellows on its body.

And secondly, the typing. It definitely feels like the steel-type comes out of nowhere when Shelmet is only bug-type. I think it would've been much better if Shelmet was bug/steel and Karrablast was bug/dark; then when they evolve, it flips, so Accelgor would've been bug/dark and Escavalier's bug/steel now fits with the concept. Minor thing obviously, but it's always bugged me (no pun intended). I still enjoy Escavalier overall regardless though.

As a whole, it's nice to see a line (or lines, in this case) that finally puts the trade evo idea to good use. I think the concept could've been stronger in a few spots, but it's still a fun theme and obvious enough to figure out through the visuals alone.

[itsclydebitches]

Young girls and women who had the Maiden powers cannonball into their souls WITHOUT CONSENT or KNOWLEDGE and were then told by a stranger that the only way to get rid of them is for them to be killed AND that there are people out there who want to do that AND that they have to leave whatever life and family they had behind and never see them again, watching Ruby complain about her "burden": 😐🙄🙁😒🤨🙃

You know, that adds an interesting spin to the age-old Pyrrha debate that I'd never considered. Fans have long dragged Ozpin for (supposedly) manipulating her into taking the powers, citing everything from someone her age being unable to make an informed choice (despite everyone else her age being an adult capable of leading this war), to the lack of information negating any true ability to judge the decision (but information isn't necessary for other characters, like Ironwood). As my asides showcase, I've always felt that this is hypocritical nonsense and does a huge disservice to Pyrrha, both in terms of acknowledging what a hard choice that was and taking into account her own, fatal flaw of feeling like she has to be the hero. (If anything, Pyrrha should have gotten a "Being a leader is so hard and I'm crumbling under the pressure" arc, not Ruby.)

But all that aside, you raise a good point about how terrifyingly passive most Maidens are in this process, with the exception of those who steal the powers (Raven) or are in a highly coincidental position to willingly accept the powers right when a Maiden is dying (Penny). The fandom tried to paint Ironwood as "forcing" the powers on Winter, manipulating her into becoming a tool, but no one wants to acknowledge that Penny would have then done the same thing? At least Ironwood asked Winter, whereas Penny decided on her own who could safely wield the power, giving that to Winter whether she still wanted it or not. The fact that the story frames this as the correct decision by having Winter currently need the power to save herself from Ironwood doesn't erase the fact that she still wasn't given a choice during the actual transfer. Hope you're happy being responsible for the entirety of your Kingdom now, Winter, because you're literally the only one with the power to protect them from the grimm army your friends dropped them into.

Based on the historical implications, most Maidens have not chosen this, have been forced to grapple with all the horrors you've laid out, which puts things like the otherwise morally ambiguous aura machine into a new light. Yes, it still goes against the "natural" state of things according to Remnant culture and yes, Pyrrha was not given a perfect segue into this choice (for various reasons), but at least it was a choice. Regardless of what you think of how Ozpin went about it, that's MORE of a choice than most other Maidens get. Do you want to be somewhat prepped beforehand, given time to decide, have a support system in place to help guide and protect you... or do you want to have these powers slam into you one day with no context? Hell, if we go by what we know about the Maidens as a whole, Pyrrha was the best candidate according to the Inner Circle and the magic itself. It things had gone differently with Amber and Cinder's bug theft, the power might well have gone to Pyrrha anyway, simply by virtue of her being a young, powerful, heroic woman with a Fall-like aesthetic.

Then yeeeeaaah. Look, Ruby has been through it. I'm not denying that. But the show really failed imo to both highlight the appropriate tragedies and allow her to navigate that grief in a way that didn't come across as incredibly selfish. Her actively striving for authority since Volume 4, becoming arrogant in her abilities, losing things and people due in large part to her own stupid mistakes (you kept the Lamp out, Ruby, you lied to Ironwood, you had the bright idea to turn Penny human and therefore vulnerable), the fact that she's surrounded by cursed Maidens and cursed immortals and cursed hosts and cursed aged-up allies and an entire dead village... and then the breakdown is, 'Woe is me, cheering people up is so hard'? Not that the story would ever go there, but I WISH Oscar had been in that scene, just so he could side-eye the hell out of her. "I'm sorry, which of us has been forced to participate in this war and burdened with the responsibility of leadership? Who is slowly losing themselves in the process, to the point where they're no longer recognizable from who they once were? You? Are you sure, Ruby?"

The writers really aren't aware of how that comes across in a story with so much horror going on, or they do and they just didn't bother to acknowledge and grapple with that limited, child-like perspective. We could have simply gotten an arc where Ruby is grieving Penny and, as a result, thinking on all the other people she's lost/how she might have failed those of Atlas and Mantle. Introducing these failures through the lens of her leadership really muddled things though. You chose this. You've supposedly been making decisions as a group. There's too many inconsistencies and retcons attached to Ruby's leadership - and too many other characters going through Objectively Horrific Things - to write the breakdown that way without Ruby coming across as completely oblivious to anyone else around her. And yes, I say that for a character who has been ignored by her team all Volume. She's also ignoring Jaune understandably grieving a whole village of people! All of them are awful nowadays! I miss when the group was actually kind and considerate and fun to watch lol

[doctorstrangereview]

0013: Strange Tales #123

Cover Date: August 1964 On-Sale Date: May 12, 1964

Doc once again interacts with the Marvel Universe at-large. He faces a new-to-him, but not new foe. The Mighty Thor's sparring partner, Loki, visits our master sorcerer with evil intentions. Doc shares half the cover this round! His popularity must be growing. He's also got something weird going on with his hands that may be the colorist's bad decision. Doc's hands are flesh colored but his wrists are orange like his gloves. It's almost like the gloves are in multiple parts and Doc chose to wear only the gauntlet parts. However, no line creates a clear delineation between hands and possible gauntlets. The masterworks recoloring respects this odd choice. The Pocket Books reprints from 1978 did not and made them appear as regular gloves. The bottom of the splash page promises Thor putting in an appearance "drawn in the somewhat different Ditko style." Ditko is better at Kirby characters than Kirby is with Ditko characters.

Doc, enjoying a casual day (sans big cloak,) floats in his study attempting to master the art of levitation, while he is being spied on by Loki, Asgardian god of evil. At this point, Loki is pure evil and not the ambiguous, non-binary imp of today. As we've seen multiple times before, Doc isn't so hot on the security thing, mystic or physical so any magic user can peek on what's going on inside the Sanctum Sanctorum. Doc may be in the same study we've seen before, but the Sanctum's depiction has always been really inconsistent so who knows?

Loki spends several panels in long-winded exposition for the audience's sake which boils down to "I will trick Doctor Strange into stealing Thor's hammer for me!" He conjures a cool looking insect type sigil above his cauldron (which is really just a hole in the ground) and pops into Doc's Sanctum delivering Doc quite a surprise! He even dressed in odd chains for the occasion and blaming the "evil" Thor for his predicament!

Now, the Avengers have been around nearly as long as Doc has at this point and Loki has been annoying Thor for longer than that. Doc is also a highly skilled and well informed magic user. It seems to be stretching suspension of disbelief to think Doc is completely unaware of who Loki is. Yet, he seems to have never heard of Loki here. I guess no one had answered that Village Voice ad for continuity coordinator yet.

Doc's All-Purpose Amulet probes Loki's chains not suspecting that the evil he senses is Loki, not the fake Thor chains. "Dude! Only Thor's gnarly hammer can free me!" "Okay dude, but I need a piece of the hammer to cast the proper spell!" "What a coincidence! I have this little sliver of leather from the handle that I've been carrying around since the beginning of time!" "Perfect! Let's go!"

Doc throws the sliver into his own cauldron, mumbles some mumbo-jumbo and viola, a metal hand rises from the cauldron, flies off and grabs Thor's hammer. He's in mid-flight so he's got no where to go but down. Loki is able to see this and then imagines a giant version of himself standing on the earth with a giant version of the hammer, apparently unaware of the massive gravity disruption giant Loki with giant Mjolnir would cause.

Doc, using his own investigative skills and the All-Purpose Amulet sees there is no evil in that little, tiny bit of leather and realizes "It was Loki all along!" He might have been smart enough to deduce this, but not smart enough to not say it out loud. Loki's sharp ears (even though covered by his costume) catch this and he attacks Doc. Doc threatens to stop the spell which has stolen the hammer, which is probably something he should have done at that moment.

What follows is a visually spectacular battle between the two. Doc is severely outmatched by Loki, but soldiers on. There's some back and forth where Doc imprisons Loki who shrugs it off and Loki imprisons Doc who has a much more difficult time escaping. Using illusion images of himself, Doc hides in the next room, changes to his spirit form, sneaks up on Loki and cancels his "steal Thor's hammer spell."

The hand disappears and the caption reads that "time spins back, back... until, before Thor's fall finished..." Does this mean that Thor went splat? Did the spell rewind the world, like Superman in the first Christopher Reeve movie? The world may never know.

"Oh, hell!" thinks Loki, "I really need to hurry things along." Doc attempts to entrap Loki in the Purple Dimension, but that doesn't work. Doc uses the All-Purpose Amulet to throw up a shield as a last resort. Loki crouches like a monkey and uses what looks like a floppy lightning bolt to pummel Doc. It's quite a ridiculous panel! I love it!

Thor flies toward the Sanctum as Loki prepares to administer the coup-de-grace. "Damn it! Gotta go, Doc!" Loki's spirit form returns to Asgard as Thor flies by the Sanctum. We get a close-up look at Ditko's Thor. It's definitely different from the Kirby rendition, but it certainly isn't bad. In fact it's slightly more realistic.

Just wait until Kirby draws Doc again in a couple of months!

Thor's hammer stops tingling so he doesn't visit Doc but flies by the big, round Vishanti window as Doc looks out. Doc says some platitudes on how good must always triumph over evil out loud to himself and our story ends.

Well that was exciting! We get a truly one-sided battle where Doc is really overwhelmed by his foe. As a bonus, we get an Avenger guest starring. But that's really a cock-tease since he's more plot device than character. I really wish I could ask Lee and Ditko if Thor actually died in this story and was magically un-splatted. Visually, the battle between Loki and Doc is great. Ditko is getting more and more imaginative depicting magic. He is also getting lazier when it comes to backgrounds and they're mostly negative space. I suppose it helps when the funky chairs don't distract from the bolts of bedevilment. Overall, it was nice to have Doc interact with the rest of the Marvel Universe again, especially in his own series.

[the-epic-hiram-lows]

i would LOVE director's commentary on your favorite moodboard(s)

OMG, you just gave me license to be so pretentious, anon. Thank you. I will try to make this DVD commentary as entertaining and insightful as possible.

These will be very long, so I will do one per post. Let's go in chronological order.

Penelope Blossom

For clarity, I will go L-R from each row, starting at the top.

I had about 5-6 glove options, but they all came off too garish. I mostly settled on this one because of the unsettling normalcy of the backdrop. While Penelope is a gothic heroine, her type of evil lurks in the most mundane of places.

I swear I have a clear image of Penelope playing a piano. If not canon, it feels right. That was the cherry on top of this sundae. I searched far and wide for the right traumacore image with this theme. Lots of options were too specific. I am so happy I found this one, which is nearly the exact quote I searched for, and had a red theme.

I hate that I chose this, and keep kicking myself for doing two wardrobe-based pictures in the same row, though a good 45% of me thinks that their existing on the same row evokes a story, and makes it look intentional. Also, this is Dolce.

This one came up while searching for an entirely different Penelope-related picture. I think it is the first one I found. It felt like such a happy coincidence I didn't bother searching for anything similar. The shoe was already red, which really makes it seem fated that it showed up in a completely unrelated search. I love that it feels distinctly 80s. Not only is that the era of Penelope's origin story, but it shows Penelope's range. Who else can effortlessly flow from 80s pulp to gothic Victorian?

I spent at least a full hour trying to find the perfect photo of old Hollywood hair to crop. It didn't even have to be red. Nothing worked. I must have searched 10 terms. I even resorted to Google. Finally, I just searched 'hair extension' in hopes of an extreme close up. I ended up falling in love with the simplicity of this image. It really enhanced the 'fox in the snow' color palette I wanted- more on that later. I'm not thrilled with the color job (it was a warm blonde originally. I just enhanced the reds to the nth degree) but it'll do. I had to put red hair in the center because it defined her entire path. Had her genes been slightly different, the Blossoms would not have adopted her with nefarious intent.

This is as literal as it is metaphorical. On a metaphorical level, the keys reflect that she is a captor (and, within that, another metaphor- most of the captivity she causes is psychological.) The keys also serve as a literal encapsulation of the aesthetic she curated. Of course, that aesthetic also largely informs the genres of her story lines. The aesthetic also shows a deep attachment to the past. She chooses nostalgia over convenience (keys over doors that lock themselves,) but not because she enjoys reminiscing. Speaking of the past, though she is a captor now, she was a captive in the past she clings to.

Probably too on-the-nose. I debated this, then told myself any other representation of her poison plants would either be too ambiguous or not aesthetically cohesive.

I love this next to the previous picture. A two frame story. What really made me go 'JACKPOT' was the layers upon layers of Penelope's story it applies to. Firstly, it's a goblet. This is an obvious nod to G&G- the blue juice, the aesthetics of her campaign and the game as a whole, and the scene with Alice in the bathroom. It also echoes of the poison challenge she made Veronica and Betty complete. That brings me to the next element- the fact the photo is a representation of being poisoned. Due to cropping, I'm not 100% sure it comes through, but the photo is someone collapsed on the floor with a spilling goblet. It's a trope we've seen a million times. We know that poison is one of Penelope's signature weapons of choice. Through which medium? Gardening. And what is spilling out of that goblet? Rose petals. Specifically, red roses. It is as if Penelope left a kiss of death for someone as a calling card (fitting, given her former profession.) The flowers are as delicate as they are unassuming, like any good femme fatale. It also serves as a stealthy nod to The Flowers in the Attic.

This is what she wants most, is it not? In some ways, she reminds me of one scene in The Killing of a Sacred Deer (if you haven't seen it, please do,) where the antagonist tells his ambiguously deserving victim "I don't know if what is happening is fair, but it's the only thing I can think of that's close to justice." Penelope, pathologically stuck on the past, can only focus on vengeance. It is not fair that she suffered, so she must make others suffer. There is no changing the past, so the people who caused her suffering must pay for it. However, Penelope is lawful evil. She does not act out of apathy or a pure love for depravity. She has a code. See: the challenges she forced the core four to do. If Penelope wanted to, she had ample opportunity to simply murder them. She didn't need to provide an antidote for the poison at the end of the game, either, but Penelope has a love for the game. While you could (and maybe should) argue this is also plot armor in action, I think it shows that Penelope has some sort of internal moral code that informs her villainous logic. Sure, Hal died, but that's because someone had to pay... and Hal committed the worse sin of all: failing to deliver what Penelope needed of him. So, yes, there is some 'honor' in her evil... but, more importantly, honor is what she hopes to achieve through the vengeance. Who will give a little orphan girl the honor she deserved? Nobody did, so she must retroactively honor that girl's suffering with revenge.

Miscellaneous/broad notes now! The second I was tasked with doing a Penelope mood board, I had an immediate color scheme in mind. I wanted a pale, fiery, striking palette that still had a dark gothic feel. Looking back, I wish I toyed with it more, but I stayed true to the image of greys, whites and reds cloaked in darkness.

I also immediately knew at least 4 of the 9 image concepts I wanted. All of the mood boards were difficult for their own reasons- for Penelope, it was narrowing down options, which is a good problem, all things considered.

I decided very early on that I wanted my mood boards to be a psychological study. They must treat every delusion as reality, because they are firmly grounded in the subjects' mind set and self image. For instance, I would not put something like 'shut up you smarmy bastard' on a Bret board. That is exterior perception. I would love to do more broad mood boards later on, where I tackle the character design, including fan reception and/or in-universe reception to the character, but I nixed that for my first round of mood boards. Instead, I told myself I need to tap into every ounce of empathy in my body and tell the story Penelope tells herself. Some things, like the set of keys, do double as an Easter egg of sorts. They apply to Penelope as both a victim and a perpetrator, but I don't think that is something Penelope is exceptionally ignorant to (see: Alice Cooper.)

I originally wanted an extreme close-up of baroque applique detailing as homage to her fashion sense (baroque, Victorian, the occasional military and circus reference.) I have no real reason for nixing this, but it was one of the first images I knew I wanted.

The reason I went with Penelope for my first mood board was: I got an ask requesting a mood board, but didn't want to decide who its subject would be. I went into the Riverdale chat and said "name a character." The first response was @serialkillerbettycooper saying Penelope. One of the intriguing early replies was Caramel the Cat, which I am high key considering.

The end! I will come back with Jughead commentary next time. If you've made it this far, I am seriously impressed and love you very much. Also, I didn't proofread this, so if you see errors/repetition... no you don't, actually!

[powerpolyculeshowdown]

Bittersweet anon here, i hope this doesn't annoy you or is too long or anything and you don't have to post it if you don't want to but i just wanted to share my favorite bits of the threat with you because some parts of it made me think about our conversation about this whole thing:

"It is clear to everyone that this relationship is open to interpretations ranging from poly, to open with a +1, to platonic soul mates, etc right? And that this is left ambiguous due to the nature of the self-insert medium?" (this was a poll question he posted, where 98% of people answered yes and only 2% said no)

"I got a bunch of hate during Chapter 3 because I didn't explicitly state exactly what the relationship was, despite openly stating that any interpretation be it romantic, platonic, etc. was valid and welcome! No one was ever told no, or that they were wrong."

"These seemed to be people who were relatively new to my work, and(...) weren't there for the panic that swept through when Seth appeared and people thought Alphonse was going to break up with (listener), or that the relationship would change in a radical way."

"But damn, there were a few really loud folks during Chapter 3 that stole a lot of the joy from me during that time. Imagine telling a queer creator that they're baiting because they didn't pat your head and tell you you're the one true correct interpretation. Yikes!"

"It got to the point where I was questioning myself, wondering if I had drastically misjudged my audience and understanding of expectations. But...no, I think it was just a few people whose expectations from other creators didn't translate to how I do things."

"Which is fine, I don't want to appeal to everyone, and I create for me first and foremost. My art is for my joy, my story, my heart. But if you want to be a jerk about it, I will probably tell you to go fuck yourself moving forward."

"For those of you who have been supportive, voiced additional support in the face of the most bad faith shitty takes the fandom has ever seen, or just vibed in your own lane and enjoy my boys in peace...bless you. You keep me going. <3"

"It means a lot to me that interpretations like this exist and are valid. There's so many stories about jealousy and bitterness and miscommunication that would blow up a relationship like that. Sometimes it's nice that people can grow together and just be family!"

"I cross posted this on YouTube and got such a lovely response from the community there as well. Thank you all for the validation, I was really miserable after Chapter 3 wrapped but this comforts the hell outta me."

it doesnt annoy me at all!! to tell the truth i was worried about the author when you told me about the hate they got for choosing to keep it open. it's extremely frustrating to me that soany people target queer creators or queer media in general for not being what they personally consider Perfect, as if not fitting one specific mold makes it irredeemable fsr??

like ive seen ppl accuse media with a roch cast of queer characters where a few happened to die as "bury your gays trope" like no!! thats not how it works!! gay characters can die the problem is when you kill off your only rep!!

an auhor can leave something open to interpretation, especially smth like this where like the listener is a character and you're trying to make a large group comfortable, that's not baiting. the characters are even canonically gay and open to polyamory, like, someone's personal interpretation of the relationship status doesnt change that??

im happy to hear the author is feeling better now nd that they got support too! thanks for sharing these w me since i couldnt look at the thread on my phone, i appreciate it!! i might not be in the fandom but i do like when people tell me aboit the stuff they like so im always happy to listen when you send messages about bittersweet! (same goes for any other ask ive gotten that just wanted to talk about their beloveds!!)

[applin-bottom-jeans]

trying to reorganize my life for new years

through the power of agile brainrot i'm doing a new thing for time tracking and i kind of want to share it here (especially since i don't have a real update for pigeon-splice like i wanted)

so last year i tried to figure out organizational methods for the stuff i had in my life because my current system - writing down weekly todos and then breaking those into daily tasks - wasn't really working, both in the short term (large tasks that need to be done during the day get kicked, forever) and long term (no tracking for long term projects with deadlines)

but then two things happened

i read up on agile stuff

i got put on a better release type of my meds and holy shit i am less wiaefrjueiwahjfdeioswAFHeouihf (and then got put back on the old version because of a miscommunication between docs and then put back on the new version, more on that later)

I'm not a big fan of kanban because i feel like in card form seeing all of the cards you have in your queue gets extremely overwhelming, especially if you dont have a good way of organizing them by tag (so really, i just hate trello).

but scrum. im in a deep love-hate relationship with scrum. Here's my understanding of scrum, which may not be entirely accurate, with commentary -

Sprint - a length of time where work is measured, usually 2 weeks - no comment, perfect length of time, love that

scrum points - how much work you think a task will take, which will help determine the amount of work you have planned for a sprint - this can get ambiguous depending on the work you do. What happens if something goes wrong? What happens if you need more information and need more time? I understand that there are many tasks that you can learn to estimate well, but at what point is a bad estimation due to your performance or outside factors?

burndown chart - how many scrum points you estimated vs how many you've actually done - this helps with the issue with points and i think its good in theory but also i really don't want a chart of how poorly im doing thats easily accessible by someone higher up in the food chain who might want to decide who to lay off

Sprint planning - a meeting where you plan what will be in a sprint - great. no commentary.

standup - a meeting with your team every day to discuss what you're working on - introspection is good but why do i have to tell my entire team this information every single day. i have an anxiety disorder

sprint review - discussing how the sprint went and how much you got done - good, great

sprint retrospective - basically the same as the review but with vibes - not sure why this is a different meeting but ok

Basically i like the idea of scrum and i really like the philosophy of its work tracking but i feel like the implementation of it in a team turns it into glorified micromanagement. But this is for personal use? Seems good, lets try it out

This still doesn't really help solve the long term project problem but for that i organized the year into financial quarters, like a completely normal person.

So for every quarter this year, i'm planning on having a set of quarter wide goals (duration measured in a month or more), a sprint level goal (duration of days - weekish), and a daily goal (should be as simple as possible).

My general goals for the year is get better at art to the point where i'm finally happy with it, get through all the craft supplies i've accumulated through the years, do big stupid projects, and get healthier i guess. This quarter I'm working on a big BD2 project, a couple of sweaters, a few art challenges, and cleaning my apartment. In the end, my breakdown for this looks like this:

Q1:

Quarter-wide

* BD2 Project

* Two sweaters

* 3 art challenges

* Deep Clean apartment

* Ramp up back to exercising regularly

* Get 6 pages into the pokemon cross stitch project

* Get 2 haircuts (usually i get 1.5 every 3 months...)

Every sprint

* Run 4 times

* Make 1 good painting

* Make 1 practice painting (Q1 emphasis on portraits)

* Make 1 jewelry set (necklace, or earrings, or whatever)

* Buy food

* Clean out previously cleaned parts of the apartment

Every day

* Draw a bird (practice painting)

For this sprint I'm about to start, Bidoof (I named my sprints after dinky pokemon), I have the following specific goals which may intersect with the list above:

Ooblets Painting

Carpenters Close To You Practice Painting

Ahmed Aldoori's 100 head challenge

Clear out my closets

Make a fish pendant and lil anchor earrings

Page 2 of the pokemon cross stitch

Make squares for the current sweater i'm making

"Wtf is LSDJ" and beg people to listen to what i come up with

Get the music plan into LSDJ

And for any tasks that I didn't finish, they either

get kicked to the next sprint, in this case Carbink

get obliterated to hell

so i have the flexibility sometimes to push things off if they're not working out. i have already kicked out a lot of the LSDJ stuff because last week i had to go back on my old meds so i had to transition to old antidepressants and then transition back again to the new antipressants and my brain didn't like that. but its fine, we're fine. help

I then have a todo list i make for the day in the morning and i try to grab whatever i can from the goals list.

and yeah. i hope this helps getting my stuff together for this year. i already feel more on top of things but that might just be the antidepressants so

[badedramay]

can i say that i really don't understand why everyone is so vehemently intent to criticize the fact that kim calls elders by their name? i understand it's not really a thing but isn't the entire point that kim has grown largely removed from any kind of pakistani community, so she's adopted the practices of those around her instead? it's incredibly common for americans here to refer to adults by name once they're adults themselves. and even then if it still isn't believable i think it's absolutely ridiculous people are eager to write off the whole drama merely bc kim is unconventional when it comes to a few things. we're so obsessed with maintaining this "ideal" diaspora image that we can't even invest in a drama for more than two episodes to see what it has to say. not to mention diaspora pakistanis are hardly a monolith. i'm not an ideal diaspora pakistani myself. i'm not a pti supporter, i don't really hold a lot of nationalist sentiment, i talk freely with and openly challenge my parents. if i wrote a story about myself would that be unrealistic too? people have got to start questioning the things that make them stop watching dramas and the things that don't. they're more willing to field abuse narratives bc at the least it's "realistic" and familiar than they are willing to field anything out of the ordinary simply bc it doesn't speak to their direct experiences. what a load of nonsense

gaah i wish i had better technical knowledge to name the right terms and not just the concept which would give my answer brevity but alas, i am forever cursed to type in long winded paragraphs so pls bear with me here T_T

i just feel that the Pakistani desi audience, diaspora and non, have a very..strenuous relationship with identity. we don't HAVE an identity. in the larger global political landscape, Pakistan doesn't really stand apart. not our food, not our clothing, not the cultures of our country; there's nothing that can be credited to being solely originated from here. the food we take pride in on the global level is attributed to India. same goes for our clothing. when we try to own something as our own, there's someone else standing up to take claim ke jee actuallyyyyy this is originated from our land so please back off. there's a reason why Ertrugrul, a Turkish dizi about a historical figure of the Ottomon Empire's time, became a rage in Pakistan to the point of being promoted by our then-PM because Pakistan, a country that supposedly got its freedom on the basis of the religion Islam, doesn't even have one single "perfect" Muslim figure that they can own. we are constitutionally an Islamic country but the state of the religion and its interpretation in the country is pathetic to say the least.

hum kaun hain? humein nahin pata. we are something else in our heads and completely something different in reality. and the two versions don't match. this conflict becomes most apparent when interpreting the stories of our dramas. the good, perfect, ideal mashriqi character satisfy the perfect version in our heads. the modern, flawed character is seen as an attack on our "values" and hence banned. ironically BOTH these kind of characters are defended as "aise log hote hain dunya mein! Maine khud dekhe hain!" so what's the reality here?

and because we don't even HAVE an identity to speak of so we have yet to ACCEPT the fact that yes, people are different. and because people are different, CHARACTERS will be different too. just because these characters don't look and sound like ME doesn't mean they are a bad representation or unrealistic characters. they are not my mirror, doesn't mean they don't reflect anyone. have you noticed how in Pakistani media we don't really get characters that are defined by their background? like their cities are almost always deliberately kept ambiguous? at most you'll get the Karachi vs Lahore vs Islamabad debate and the characters hailing from only these particular backgrounds will have any kind of obviously noticed traits. but what about countless other areas of the country?

In Indian media you'll see characters being known by their cities and immediately all of their idiosyncrasies are accepted ke haan, they are from this particular area toh they gonna be different. yes, this gives rise to stereotypes BUT there's also an acceptance of the characters as they are hence, allowing them to be explored as individuals and not just a perfect representation of whatever place they hail from. in Pakistani media you don't have that. because our media, in dramas specifically, EMPHASIZES on the entire culture and identity of our country as BEING homogeneous. and anyone who is even remotely related to this identity HAS to act in accordance of the rules and mores of this society or be rejected.

which brings us to Kim. Kim hasn't been accepted by the audience because of her father's Pakistani origins. Kim herself is a true American, she never set foot in Pakistan before the start of the drama. in fact if not for her mother's upbringing, Kim wouldn't even have learned her parents' mother tongue. the tragedy with Kim is that the writer couldn't give her either accurate American traits not accurate Pakistani traits so she's stuck in between. Pakistani audience cannot accept her as their own, the diaspora audience cannot accept her as their own. everything else becomes secondary because Kim DARES to have an IDENTITY that cannot be neatly boxed. She's just Kaneez "Kim" Fatima.

the failure to understand that for the story of Yunhi to work, Kim HAD to have selective traits from the liberal west and the conservative east is really most because Kim serves as a reminder of our own lack of solid identity. the fact that if she tried to she could fit in either of these opposing societies is what baffles people. how could she? you are either east or west. you cannot be separated from either of these like Kim.

on one hand social media is exposing us to inter-racial relationships or transnational relationships (yes, even amongst Muslims) making us aware of how people can choose to make their own world that combines the two worlds from which they belong. on the other hand we as a society are still having generational fights over "ji hamare yahan toh yeh ritual aisa hota hai hum aapke tareeqe ko nahin maante". the little bit of sense of identity that we do have, we cling to it desperately and want to defend it from inauthentic people like Kim in media that challenge our notions of identity. Kim can say a 10000 right things but because one of the most prominent feature of our society is that we always address all elders with a title of respect, Kim not doing that makes her an outsider. but she's worse than an outsider, she's a traitor to her Pakistani identity. which...she never claimed to be in the first place??

I can bet if Maya had perfected the New York accent and that reflected even in her Urdu dialogues, the criticism about her calling the elders by the name wouldn't have been that much. it'd have been "cute" then kyunke identity toh hamari hai nahin, complexes toh MaShaAllah bohat zyada hai. angrezi ke talway chaatna toh hum lagta hai Ammi ke pait se seekh ke aate hain. khair. Kim doesn't attach respect to titles but to people. sure, she calls her MiL by her first name but has she ever disrespected her. I thought that was one of the POINTS™ the show was making that just being ADDRESSED with a title of respect is not enough when our individual identity is denied and disrespected on every chance. is it really that deep jo samajh mein nahin araha hai ab tak?

urrgh this is running long and I think i lost the thread of sense long ago but just one last thing! it's been 30 episodes now, right? and until now Kim hasn't CHANGED in appearance. and the desi diaspora is OBSESSED with appearances. sahi dikho, sahi bolo; dil bhale jaisa bhi ho. be politically correct, be diplomatic. make your intentions as crude as possible but never let your language reflect that. cuz that is all we have to offer. the Pakistani diaspora, in all these years, hasn't produced much of progressive mindsets or done anything to own their identity. toh sabko chupa lo carpet ke neeche..keep your head down, say the right things, and just hope we'll be ignored. apni dunya mein mast raho bass.

[a-student-out-of-time]

Several other people have doubts about your Arei/J switch theory, but what doubts do you have about your own theory? you've stated it's not a perfect theory, so I'd be interested to hear why you don't think it's a perfect theory.

//Just that I'm making observations largely based on what I feel would be the most thematically significant ways to interpret these events, and how they would string together in the most appropriate matter.

//I could be completely wrong about the switch, but everything else regarding Arei's character could be accurate and we just aren't seeing what happened with her off screen. I would, however, still be very disappointed.

//I've talked at length about DR's Mean Girl problem, and the issue there is that, after deaths, these types of characters largely highlight how superfluous they are to the narrative. They die and it's like they were never part of the game to begin with. I trust that DRDT isn't making the same mistake here, but it's still disappointing in its own way

//If Arei died trying to protect the others, that's at least a noble way to go out and a potentially tragic way to have this play out. But I don't want her to have died, not just because she's my favorite character but because her survival and the switch theory have so much more potential regarding DRDT's themes about trust and betrayal

//How much more narratively significant would it be for someone who started off as a bully, who believed that kindness is weakness and that kind people can't survive in the real world, be saved by someone who they'd initially dismissed? Someone who chooses to be kind no matter how cruel the world is to her?

//This especially in light of the switch reveal, which would undoubtedly leave her seeming like the most suspicious one of the group, which the Blackened would definitely latch onto and try to turn everyone against her. All except Eden, who believes in being kind, and Teruko, who both has no choice but to trust her if she wants to survive and who still has some kind of emotional reaction to Arei's crying we've yet to explain.

//I feel that my big flaw here is that I might be reading into the text to look for what I want out of this chapter, rather than what may actually be there.

//Brandon Sanderson once said that the worst form of criticism is re-writing someone's story into one you would write, rather than a better version of what they would write, and I have to wonder if that applies here

//But there's so much evidence for something like this having happened that I don't think I'm wrong either. Just that there's enough that's still ambiguous that it could go either way

//I still, however, disagree with any take that suggests this is meant to signify why Teruko's pessimism and cynicism is correct. That's clearly not what's going on with this chapter, but quite the opposite. Eden is right in saying that human connections are how you survive this game, not closing yourself off to others and pretending like it doesn't hurt to lose them