#as i mentioned in a previous post i've been missing the times when the group was still as active as how young people would be

[scarletlizzard]

OH MY GOSH, AHHHHH!!! 500 FOLLOWERS!!! IM SO HAPPY FOR YOU!!!!

I love the list you posted btw. I picked two because I thought they went well together ☺️

72 and 45:

Wanda: "Oh my god, are you okay?"

R: "Yeah I'm fine, I've been stabbed before."

Wanda: "I'm going to fucking kill them."

72 & 45

104 Dilogue Prompts

Pairing: wanda x reader (don't think pronouns are mentioned)

Tags: little violence, reader gets stabbed, mentions of a gun, fluff honestly

A/n: Thank you so much!! 🥹 and thank you for requesting! I love hearing from yall 💞

~~~

The mission was going great.

They didn't always, and the fact that Steve paired you up with Wanda was making it all the better. Your goal, get to the lower levels where the servers are located to retrieve the data needed. Wandas goal, get you there safely. You were an asset to the team for sure, with your smarts and spy skills, but sometimes the occasion called for a little magical touch. You couldn't have been more grateful this was an occasion.

The two of you were currently waiting on one of the upper levels of the building, waiting on Steve or Natashas signal to continue down.

You glimpse at Wanda again as she leans against the wall across from you. Her red locks flow past her shoulders, red suit hugging her curves as she twists a ring on her finger.

"I'm glad Steve paired us up, by the way," you say quietly with a smile on your face. Wanda doesn't miss the glint in your eye as she looks up to meet your gaze.

"Well, someone had to babysit, right?" She says playfully, a smirk on her lips. Your lips part as you gasp and stand straight from your previous leaning position.

"I-what-babysit?" The words spill out all together as you look at her in offense. "I'll have you know I am a decorated international spy. I may not be a-a black widow or have magic fingers, but I assure you I don't need a babysitter!" You huff as you step up to her, ego calming as she stands straight, looking down at you.

"Magic fingers?" Wanda chuckles, and your cheeks burn.

"You know what I meant," you mumble and cross your arms. She steps closer, now invading your personal space.

"Are you talking about my powers or the magic that had you in my bed screa-"

You put your hand over her mouth, stopping her from finishing her sentence. She lifts her hands in defense as you glare at her with a red face.

Before either of you can say another word, Natashas voice call over the comms.

"Head down, Wanda, be ready. They're waiting for you guys," she warns. The two of you look at each other with a nod, both of you attempting to be serious. You make your way lower, coming across a set of double doors.

"Ready?" Wanda asks, her fingers twitching as she forms red orbs of energy in her hands. You nod, pulling out your pistol in one hand and a small knife in the other.

Wanda sends a blast through the doors, opening them up and revealing a group of the enemies that had, in fact, been waiting. She's quick to send another few blasts, scattering them about the large room as the two of you begin to fight.

"Babysitter..." You mumble to yourself, shaking your head as you take down an agent. You look over at Wanda to see she's taken out half the group. Okay, so maybe it wasn't bad she was here. You, not so easily, fight with another and lose your pistol in the process. But as you land another punch, he falls to the ground.

"See that?" You breathe out as you look to Wanda, who gracefully fought the last three at the same time. "I can take care of myself!" You say with a huff and lean down to grab the fallen gun.

As you do, you feel yourself being grabbed from behind. An excruciatingly sharp pain resonates from the side of your abdomen and you let out a, "Fuck!" When the agent removes the blade they stuck in you. You raise your hand across your body, pointing the gun behind you.

The bullet only grazes them, and they run through the set of double doors as soon as Wanda turned her head in your direction.

"Oh my god, are you okay?" She asks with worried eyes. A shaky hand rests on your face as she watches blood spill through your shirt. Your hand covers the gash to apply pressure, a wince leaving your lips.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I've been stabbed before," you say with a casual tone, trying to act as if the wound throbbing with pain wasn't enough to take you to your knees.

Wandas eyes burn red, an anger behind her eyes you had never seen before.

"I'm going to fucking kill them," she spits out, malice behind her words. Before she can walk away your hand reaches out to grab her wrist, stopping her.

"Wanda... don't leave me," you say softly, your touch and now gentle tone enough to calm her down only a little. She takes a deep breath, her hands still shaking with anger, but nods.

"Alright, alright, come here," she sighs softly and kisses your cheek before letting you lean on her for support as you make your way down. "We'll get you out of here and then I'm going to fucking kill them."

You chuckle a little at her reaction, face heating again just like earlier. You could see it written on her face, the way her jaw was tensed and the fire burning behind her eyes, that she wasn't lying.

"Did you see those guys I took out?" You ask, trying to lighten her mood. Wanda can't help but smile at you, both of you knowing she had fully taken on the group of them.

"They looked pretty rough, detka.. not sure why Steve and Nat thought you needed help," She says knowingly.

When she did return, it was with crimson splattered across the front of her suit and a smile on her face. You didn't say a word, only giving her a kiss and letting her wrap her arms around you.

You nod in approval, letting her stop to pick you up and carry you the rest of the way. Not that you needed it, but you weren't going to deny being in the arms of Wanda, and she wasn't going to let another person lay their hands on you again. As soon as you were safe with Natasha, Wanda disappeared.

[miss-musings]

A TBB Mini-Meta: Crosshair's Two Sides

This is a quick observation combining some of my own previous thoughts and a few that @yavln4 and other folks have discussed.

While it's not quite to the level of Harvey Dent/Two-Face from the Batman franchise, Crosshair has two distinct sides to him. I mean that more so in a physical sense, but I think there's something to be said about the emotional aspect as well.

Crosshair's right side represents who he is as a soldier and sniper.

Everything that serves as a physical reminder of his time in the Grand Army of the Republic and/or Empire is on his right side: His tattoo, the burn scar on his head, and his shaking/missing hand.

Additionally, the inhibitor chip was embedded on the right side of Crosshair's and the other clones' heads.

His right eye is also the one he primarily uses to aim. His viewfinder is on the right side of his helmet, which has zoom and infrared capabilities, and when he looks through a scope, he does so with his right eye.

I'm sure you all know exactly what I'm talking about but here are a few visual reminders:

Now, his left side represents Crosshair as a person -- specifically, as a brother and dad.

It is the side of him that is completely unmarred: No scar, no tattoo, no missing hand. It's his "normal" side, so to speak.

In general, a person's left side is traditionally associated with the heart (ie, wedding rings, etc.).

Crosshair also keeps his sidearm on his left side, which makes sense because he normally has his rifle in his right hand. I only mention this because he uses his left hand to kill Nolan in 2.12 "The Outpost," which becomes a HUGE turning point for him.

Additionally, when he collapses after shooting Nolan, he falls unconscious with his left side facing upwards. As someone else pointed out (I'm not sure who, but if I find the post I'll add the source and link here), this suggests that Crosshair has been "reborn." He's rejected being a soldier and is instead becoming his own person again.

Also, as I've pointed out before, his left side tends to be associated with Omega and/or Hunter.

Of course, Crosshair uses his left hand to save Omega from Hemlock in the finale.

In several key scenes throughout the show, Omega and/or Hunter are on his left side. Examples include but aren't limited to:

Omega talking to Crosshair in the brig in 1.01 "Aftermath"

Omega talking to Crosshair while they're trapped in Nala Se's lab in 1.16 "Kamino Lost"

Omega finding him unconscious on Tantiss at the end of 2.16 "Plan 99"

The family meeting scene at Shep's in 3.05 "The Return"

Crosshair and Hunter reaching an understanding immediately after facing the Ice Wyrm in 3.05 "The Return"

Crosshair and Hunter talking to Ventress at the end of 3.09 "The Harbinger"

Crosshair and Hunter facing down Hemlock as he holds Omega captive in 3.15 "The Cavalry Has Arrived"

The group hug in 3.15 "The Cavalry Has Arrived"

BONUS: Hunter is also to Crosshair's immediate left when Echo joins CF99 in TCW 7.04

Essentially, in S1, Crosshair's "two sides" were in conflict with each other. Initially, it was because of the inhibitor chip. However, once he regains his free will, he doesn't want to give up the life of a solider/sniper.

As much as he loves his family, in 1.16 "Kamino Lost," he ultimately chooses his identity as a soldier versus his identity as a brother.

I think that's why, when he shoots Nolan and collapses in 2.12 "The Outpost," it's significant that it's his left hand and left side that's given importance. He's finally choosing to be his own person again. He's rejecting his identity as a soldier.

Unfortunately, that choice is short-lived, as he is imprisoned at Tantiss for half a year. There, he's subjected to Hemlock's "re-education" efforts and develops a tremor in his right hand.

But, even after escaping and reconciling with his brothers, he can't completely let go of his identity as a soldier and sniper. Unfortunately, his fight isn't over yet. The Empire is still after Omega, and as long as they are, Crosshair's family won't be safe.

So, he continues to fight -- to be a soldier -- but for his family's sake this time.

It's not until CX-2 cuts off his hand in 3.15 that, in a sense, he's freed of that identity. I mean, what good is a sniper without his shooting hand?

As @yavln4 summarized nicely on my "Was there a better way to handle Crosshair's hand tremors?" post:

IMO, his hand doesn't represent his PTSD - it represents his identity as a soldier. It's more important to him than family in s1 due to reconditioning- it wavers after he loses Mayday- and it's completely severed from him before he finally rescues Omega. He goes into that final conflict not as a soldier, but as a parent.

It's only once Hemlock and Tantiss are subsequently destroyed that he's finally free to be his own person. Now, he can focus on just being a brother and a dad, and not have to worry about being a soldier again.

Of course, he'll never be able to erase he who was and the choices he made. His right side still remains -- his tattoo, his scar, his missing hand. And that part of him will be useful if he ever chooses to fight again.

But, he can be reborn. He can choose another path, another life.

His right side represents who he once was, who he was created and born to be. His destiny and his purpose.

But, his left side represents who he is now, who he chose to be and how he wants to live. His future and his freedom.

Crosshair might've been "born" on his right side, but he chose to live on his left.

[crocheting-cupio]

"Do I Have A Crush?" Quizzes as an Aromantic

In a previous post I had mentioned that I love taking "do I have a crush?" quizzes as an Aromantic. What I didn't share in that post was all of my findings from taking basically every quiz on that topic I could find. This is gonna be a bit of a long one, but I hope it will be an enlightening one!

Being an aro and taking these quizzes is pretty interesting. Because I do get plushes, which for me share some qualities with crushes, but are a completely different experience as a whole. For lack of a better equivalent, I have used my plushes while taking these quizzes. This will become relevant later on.

Anyway, here are my findings:

1. The target demographic for these quizzes is teenage girls. Well, the majority of online quizzes are intended for teenage girls. But these ones are especially designed for teenage girls. It's often painfully obvious by the way they are written, the answers available, and the scenarios provided. About crushes specifically though, this makes sense. Most people have their first crush during their teenage years. So the next logical step is to be curious about these new feelings and take an online quiz to figure out what's going on. Why only girls, though? Hard to say. It could be because they assume boys generally feel more confident in their romantic interest and thus would have no need for such a thing. Worth noting it was very hard to find a TRULY gender inclusive quiz. There's tons of wlm and wlw, but almost nothing for mlw or mlm. And if you're nonbinary or your crush is nonbinary, good fucking luck. The vast majority of them rely on some sort of gender stereotype. So many of these are clearly written from the perspective that you are a cishet woman interested in a cishet man. In multiple quizzes I have actually found typos where instead of using they/them, they accidentally use he/him in one question, almost like it had been up for a few years, then someone edited it later and missed one. A freudian slip if I ever saw one.

2. Practically all of them assume you are currently attending high school I understand that this is the time when most people get their first crush... but there are people who only crush on celebrities and fictional characters until they are an adult. This is not an extremely uncommon occurrence. So as you can imagine, there are a lot of questions that ask about how you interact with this person at school. Usually the addition of "or at work" feels like an afterthought. Some quizzes I've come across don't even consider that an adult might be taking the quiz. Like the question just openly states that you are at school.

3. They frequently assume that your crush is NOT someone in your friend group. This is probably the most interesting one to me personally. Because I myself cannot get a plush on someone until I've known them as a friend for at least three months. And I know plenty of non-aro people that need to get to know someone as a friend before developing romantic feelings. It's just... such an oddly specific assumption, y'know? They don't even consider that maybe this person is already in your friend group (unless you are talking specifically "do I have a crush on my best friend" quizzes). They just doesn't consider that the way you feel about someone can change over time. It's love at first sight or you will never feel that way about that person, I guess. (I think this is more teenager shenanigans. Because "am I about to enter a relationship with an abusive guy" doesn't appear to be the concern. Just that both or either friend group might not approve...?)

4. They generally assume your crush is a stranger or someone you do not know very well. Related to the previous one, this one is kind of weird to me. I understand the concept of love at first sight, but these are "do I have a crush" quizzes, not "is this love at first sight" quizzes. Almost every quiz I took had a least one question that assumed you had fallen in love with someone you have never spoken to. And often for answers on other questions instead of including an "I'm on the fence for how I feel about this person" option in the answers, which would be pretty logical to include, they have an option that says "N/A because I don't actually know them." However, the "do I have a crush on my best friend" quizzes are an exception to this. Instead they often assume you are spending every single free moment of time you have with this person.

5. If you have a crush on your best friend, you have either terribly misinterpreted you feelings and theirs, or they will never feel the same way about you. Um, yeah... I guess some people just can't tell the difference between romantic attraction and just being really good friends. But an important note: I think in some cases there's definitely outside pressure saying that two people "should" be in a romantic relationship simply because they are close platonically. Making those people question how they feel. Hence the existence of these quizzes. I can definitely feel that pressure while taking them.

6. They assume that your friends are all a certain type of person and your relationship with them is very specific. So here's the common assumptions I found across most quizzes:

Your friends are the type of people that are very invested in the love lives of everyone in that friend group. (And also outside of your friend group...)

Your friends are the type of people that will tease you about your romantic interests instead of being supportive.

You talk frequently about your love interests, love life, or lack there of with your friends. (Before you say "What? Everyone does that!" Not everyone does that.)

You are the only person questioning your feelings, everyone else is certain you have a crush.

Thankfully a teenage friend has informed me that this is 100% a teenager behaviour that happens all the time. Although I have seen cases where women under the age of 25 can also do this. I would go into detail about each of those but I think how these are not good assumptions to make is pretty self explanatory. You don't know me, you don't know what my friends are like, stop saying your experiences are universal. I will say blindly trusting the quiz taker's friends is not as reliable of a choice as it sounds. Sometimes people will just call any fond feelings for someone, platonic or not, a crush. And they sometimes will insist that person has a crush even if they say that they do not have a crush and simply want to be friends. And after awhile it can get to your head and feel like the only opinion that matters.

7. They assume this person is someone who you know/you regularly see in real life. In every quiz I took they asked at least one question that I could not answer because the plush I was using for all of these is someone I only know online. Specifically, it was some variant of "how often do you stare at them?" I understand this is a defining part of having a crush for most people, but I was rarely even given the option to say that this person and I are not regularly in the same room. Okay, let's say a teen girl gets a crush on a boy on from another school during like a sports game. She cannot answer this particular question truthfully either because imagining how often you'd stare at someone you met once if you were regularly in the same room with accuracy is not easy.

8. They assume you have the biggest crush, as anything less could lead to negative results from the quiz. Because I do not experience the same feelings, sometimes answering these questions truthfully is very difficult because my options are usually like this:

Q. If your crush asked you to hang out, how would you react?

OMG YES YES YES!!!

Well, we hang out all the time (as friends) so this is just a normal Tuesday for us.

I haven't even introduced myself to this person so they literally cannot ask me to hang out.

I'd make an excuse to not go.

And none of this is even close to how I feel about my plush. Or even about my friends. I cannot answer this question with 100% honesty. Legitimately, I've felt like I've gotten "you don't have a crush" results for the simple reason that I am not head over heals for my plush. Often it was either "every thought in my mind is of them" or "they're alright, I guess." But you can see how only the first option, with the most intense feelings, suggests that you have a crush. The other three options are either completely neutral feelings or suggest dislike. And since that's what people are taking this quiz to figure out, almost everyone is going to pick the first option. It might as well be just "would you hang out with your crush if they asked you, yes or no?"

So these quizzes are built on the assumption that you do, in fact, have a crush. You just want those feelings validated.

"Okay that's great Snowy, but what results did you get from these quizzes as an aromantic?"

Well, I didn't write down exact numbers since there were so many quizzes I took over about an eight month period. Some of them I took multiple times months apart and got different results. But I'd say about 60% said I had a crush, or was likely to have a crush. And 40% said I did not, or it wasn't likely to be a crush.

The funny part?

When I took some of those I didn't have a plush on anyone at the time. I was just using how I felt platonically about a close friend as the "crush." And while this did sway the results, it was not by much. Turning it more into a 50/50 chance.

No plush, no sexual attraction, they are JUST my friend. And yet, the results screen tells me I am deeply in love with them about half of the time.

When I said they assume you do have a crush, I really meant it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Finally, I have actually made my own "do I have a crush" quiz that hopefully avoids doing everything I just talked about. No assumptions about the person you may have feelings for, no assumptions about your friends, no assumptions about you, who you are, or why you are taking it in the first place.

It's password locked since I'd like to get results strictly from people who find this post on Tumblr (for now). So type in this word when prompted:

conformity

Thank you for reading all the way to the end. I spent a long time with all the research and writing so it means a lot to me. 💖

[honeysuckleharringtons]

just steve harrington being so selfless and not taking time for himself melting into a puddle if the reader or you or y/n (idk which one to put 💀) just asked him if he was okay a lot (I do that 24/7, this is purely self indulgent) and the many times he said yeah and the one time he said no :(

i was originally gonna do a full fic style blurb on this but words have been very hard for me lately so i'm just gonna do a text post about this! hope you don't mind 🫶🏻

warnings: reader is sorta implied to be fem!reader, allusions to steve being treated not so well by his parents as a kid, part of this does mention some upside down violence, tiny mention of food, no use of Y/N, lmk if i missed anything!

send me steve thoughts | ask box

I imagine the first time it happens is probably in gym class when you're younger.

You accidentally hit him right in his pretty lil face with a dodgeball ☹️

And Steve being Steve insists he's okay because "I get hit all the time in basketball and football. I've broken bones and nearly busted my teeth out. A lil dodgeball never hurt anyone."

But you can tell he's hurt.

Whether it's him that's hurt or his bruised ego, you can't really tell.

But some part of him was clearly hurt.

more under the cut!

The second time it happens is when you get paired together for a study group during senior year.

Steve struggles with a lot of subjects, but math is probably his worst.

And it's not like he doesn't want to get better, his parents just never sat down at the table and helped him with anything growing up, and when his nannies told his dad about his report cards, it didn't end very well ☹️

But math is the one he's always had the hardest time with.

So when the two of you get paired to study for the calculus final, you can almost immediately tell he's struggling to understand the questions on the example sheet.

At one point, he just kinda places his head in his hands and groans into his palms.

And you're just kinda like, "Hey, you okay?"

And again, Steve is never one to admit defeat.

"I'll be fine. Can you just help me with question four?"

Surprisingly though, after just a few nights of studying together, you become sort of reluctant allies.

He surprisingly excelled in human biology, which you did not. So, the two of you helped each other where you could.

And then it happened a third time, during the summer after you'd graduated.

Steve had had a rather unsuccessful time trying to flirt with the ladies that often came into Scoops Ahoy.

This day had been no different.

He'd really tried his hardest to get the beautiful ginger in front of you to go with him to the movies on Friday.

But she and her friends just moved along, double-scoop ice cream cones in hand, back to their shopping.

"You good?" you asked, nearly on the verge of laughing, as you stepped up to the counter.

"Oh, yeah, sure," he answered sarcastically. "Just a little bruise to my ego. That was definitely the first time any lady has turned down this beautiful face."

Part of you, though, was hurting. Hurting that, even though you were right in front of him, he'd never bothered to look at you that way.

The fourth time it happened, you really started to question everything you thought you knew about Steve.

Somehow, despite being back in town for a total of two days, you'd gotten roped into something to do with some evil dude named Vecna.

And for once, after everything you'd learned since arriving back in Hawkins for spring break, Steve was the one asking if you were okay.

Also for once, one of you was answering the question truthfully.

However, in the week that followed after, even in the midst of alternate dimensions and weird mutations of bats, you'd learned that Steve might have been causing his previous lady problems on purpose.

And when you saw the painful expression he sported as Nancy Wheeler was reunited with her boyfriend, your own heart shattered all over again.

Still, if there was one thing you were, it was a good friend to Steve.

So, you pulled him aside and asked those three little words.

Steve simply ran a hand through his disheveled hair with a slow nod.

But you could tell he was nearly at the point of breaking.

And the time when he finally answered truthfully, he really did break.

You'd drove with him to the hospital to check up on Max Mayfield, who somehow he'd became friends with despite the age difference.

The room was dead silent, other than the annoying buzzing coming from the lights.

You finally gave him a good once-over as he sat at Max's bedside—his messy hair, his pale face with newly acquired purple spots under his eyes, a small cut under his lip.

And for the first time since you'd known Steve, you watched as tears formed in his eyes.

You were quick to rush over to the other side of the bed, your hand splaying across his back and rubbing soft, small circles against his frame.

"Steve, I know this is a silly question to ask, because we both know the real answer, but seriously, are you okay?"

He knew he couldn't hide. Not any longer. So, he simply let the walls come down, croaking out a small, "No," through his flood of tears.

After crying into your shoulder and allowing himself to finally let go of everything he'd been holding in for all those years, he just simply held you.

Finally, after explaining everything—from the reason why he never told you about the Upside Down, to why he'd used Nancy and all those girls as a distraction from the person he really wanted—he just grabbed your face and kissed you. A sweet and tender kiss, not a desperate or lustful kiss, but a longing one—one he'd waited much too long to give you.

And somehow, even in the midst of all the bad stuff, even in the midst of Steve finally breaking, the two of you could finally find a way to maybe, just maybe, be okay for once. ❤️‍🩹

-> taglist: @dungeons-are-too-cold @ducky-died-inside @awkotaco24 @liberhoe @princesseddie @aftermidnightwriting @manuosorioh @esoltis280

[godisasimp]

Let's talk about Honkai Impact 3rd for a bit, yeah ?

I need to let go of it, scream into the void, because I can't stay polite about it, I started being rude in community servers about it.

Greetings,

I am a +960 days long player of the game Honkai Impact 3rd, I started during the Theater of Domination story arc and more precisely, during the Phantom of the Theater patch and the release of the valkyrie Stygian NYX.

But more importantly, I am a very so very tired player that also happens to be frustrated and angry at the treatment, or mistreatement, of a game I once held so dear to my heart.

I discovered Honkai Impact 3rd half a year after Genshin Impact's launch through an ad playing the Befall cutscene and immediately fell in love with the character I would later discover is called "Herrscher of the Void".

I don't remember most of my early days, but one of the things I do remember is getting my first S-rank valkyrie... The one who made me discover that game : Herrscher of the Void.

And ever since then I've been playing daily rarely missing a day, let alone more than that. I was eager to progress and eager to get new valkyries.

But unfortunately things changed.

The hill that keeps going down.

It all started with the release of Elysian Realm chapter story arc, a side story about Mei's time in World Serpent, at least it seemed so. It was a cute, Visual Novel styled story about a group of heroes from the previous era, an era mentioned in Mangas and the story that was shrouded in mysteries ; a cool side story to finally show us how the previous era was, to accompany the new game mode.

The gamemode was, and still is, very fun to play, with a lot of unique builds and play styles, it was a refreshing experience to not get burned out of Abyss and Memorial Arena, it kept improving overtime adding more and more characters ; the only major negative thing I could say about it was when mihoyo "fixed" the Mobius Signets who, very early on, allowed players an infinitely increasing buffs and made reaching the integer limit (aka going in the negatives) doable and easy, and also allowed anyone to clear the floors regardless of gear and level.

The story bits we're cute and gave life to the otherwise empty lobby, as you could randomly trigger conversation between characters and it really felt like you were walking in on a conversation that had started while you weren't here.

The Mobius plotline was wonderfully done, it wasn't a secret that she was evil, she was upfront about it and while she mash have tried to look cute in front of Mei at first, she never kept the act for long merely using it as a way of annoying her. The subplot of all of that was Elysia, the character that spoke and helped the most often, she was hiding her past and acting as the underlying mystery one may not notice at first.

A mystery who's resolutions unfortunately started Honkai Impact 3rd's worst, and still ongoing, era.

I've already said my fair share of thoughts about Elysium Everlasting, but for the sake of the post, I shall once again repeat my thoughts.

Following in Kolosten footsteps (and maybe through the influence of Genshin Impact), not good ones, Elysium Everlasting was "open world", as "open world" as Honkai Impact 3rd could get, this was not a welcomed choice by most of the fanbase, as a mobile game Honkai Impact 3rd has always told it's story through a Visual Novel style of story telling with minimal amount of walking around for the players, the stages being mainly used to fight enemies and bosses in ; the only other "open worlds" were in the same named category, all fully optional and merely just mihoyo testing the concept. Elysium Everlasting was the 2nd main story "open world" and my experience with is was beyond terrible, at the time I was using a pre-made low end computer that could barely handle Elysium Everlasting's scene, I experienced lags, textures not loading at all, freezes and crashes all throughout my playthrough of the chapter, something that worsen with Moon Arc, this experience made me frustrated already but the writing didn't make it worth it.

Elysium Everlasting's story was the worst one mihoyo ever wrote, it was a complete 180° from Elysian Realm, the new characters introduced did not get the luxury of the bits and pieces of randomly triggered conversations to expend their characters and unfortunately felt flatter than the first half. And they also suffered from the poor writing of the part, but at least they had no previously established character that got ruined and destroyed, same couldn't be said about the previously introduced characters, and the one who suffered most from it : was Elysia.

- Elysia : From beloved to beloathed

I've talked a lot about this character but I shall detail my history and experience with her one last time.

I have in my head created two distinct versions of Elysia : Elysian Realm and Elysium Everlasting. Simply because her character is so different between the two halves it is almost like we have two Elysias.

I will talk about ER!Elysia first because she is the one I like ; in the first half of the arc Elysia was presented as a very friendly character, borderline too friendly, and suffocating and pushing boundaries to the extreme for her own sake, a character that claimed to just be a normal girl... And she was just that, a girl that was happy, sad and angry, a girl that had insecurities about her group and the distance between her and the others, a character that lied to get her way and stole just for her amusement, she was normal, she had flaws and character, characters around her felt all sorts of ways towards her. That was who is she was, a normal girl with a past she wouldn't talk about.

And I very much liked that character, coupled with a design I really liked and she quickly became a favorite of mine in the chapter.

But then she went through what could only describe as a character assassination when Elysium Everlasting began.

Elysia who was a character who was allowed to have flaws was stripped of them, who was allowed to feel things beyond happiness was stripped of that, she was stripped of everything until all that was left is a flawless, perfect and unhatable "character". She became a character not allowed to feel even an ounce of sadness, even while walking to her own execution and death, a character no one was allowed to dislike her, all characters that previously called her a "traitor" and showed dislike towards suddenly flipped on their head praising her. Including Mei who was weary and not so attached to her.

The Flamechasers became what can only be discribed as an Elysia worshipping cult, who's only purpose was to sing praises to Elysia and nothing else.

With my small talk about Elysia done, let's go back to the overall story.

The story now lacking a threat had to create one from thin air, one that wasn't hinted at previously and so the Herrscher of Corruption fell into the story. And not even it was free from joining the Elysia worshipping cult the entire arc was.

After deleting Elysia, the Herrscher of Corruption also became infatuated with Elysia and decided to become her and leave the Elysian Realm to spread the gospel, if I had to guess.

I will say that the Herrscher of Corruption was a fitting enemy, an entity who's power revolves around data, set free in a realm entirely made of data is sure to create a dangerous foe.

Yet, despite being deleted from the Elysian Realm, Elysia came back and was used as a Deus-ex-machima type of character to finally defeat the final enemy, the finale wasn't a group effort it was just Elysia.

And just like that, Elysia deleted the Elysian Realm after being brought back through the sacrifice of others, she sacrificed herself and unfortunately this changed Mei's character, from hating self sacrifices and joining the enemy's organization solely to stop Kiana from sacrificing herself, to a character who is fine with self sacrifices all of the sudden.

And that characterization of Mei is one of the reasons Moon Arc was so terrible.

As I mentioned earlier, Moon Arc was yet another "open world" but even worse as it was scaled up, the lags worsen, I could barely play the chapter as I kept freezing, and so the frustration of Elysium Everlasting not only kept going but increased and made my experience of what is the final chapter of the original trio's story absolutely horrendous. And just like Elysium Everlasting, the story did not make me struggling to even launch the chapter worth it and I was about to give up on multiple occasions.

Moon Arc was a mess of retcons awful decisions.

The reveal that the Will of Honkai was the AI Prometheus made no sense at all and was not hinted at throughout the story, the Will of Honkai was always a naturally shapeless and emotionless figure that never spoke and only answered through actions, it did not seek anything, even when taking the shape of whoever is communicating to it, it had no face, it was just Thing. Not human, not herrscher just a physical manifestation of the Honkai's will, as its name say. But then the reveal of it being Prometheus made no sense considering the previous actions the Will of Honkai, and suddenly makes everything illogical and weird, and makes us ask why Prometheus did what she did, such as protecting Sirin and answering Otto's questions.

Then came Misteln, the "Hare" of World Serpent, who supposedly existed after Cecilia died and during Bronya's mother pregnancy, which is an inconsistency that has yet to be cleared, as those two time do not lineup at all, another confusing part of her is her powers, which are stigmata related but she seems to be able to do whatever the writers need her to do.

Staying on World Serpent, Kevin and his plan made no sense and their overall actions, or lack thereof was weird, they were supposedly trying to stop the trio and yet they helped them, talked to them for hours, and Hare even helped Bronya reached the full potential of her Herrscher core ; the overall pacing of the story was slow and there was no sign of the supposed emergency the trio was against, it was like a walk in the parc, slow walking and taking the time to have exposure.

But the worst part of all of it, was the introduction of Ai Lambda Hyperion, she was introduced in an event, in that event the player, aka us, were a part of it, it was a cute event about repairing the game and saving Ai Lambda. It was all there was to it. Until she came into the main story and so did the player, so did we. And that ruined everything, now the entire Honkaiverse is supposedly real in our world ; it especially ruined the final fight against Kevin, instead of the trio pulling through and beating Kevin, we do which makes their victory underwhelming and not as earned as if they won on their own.

Part 1's story started of as a really good, with character interactions and good character development but slowly the interactions and development worsen and disappeared leaving only an empty husk of its former self. Part 1 had a lot of potential for an emotional ending, but all we got was a nothingburger ending where Kiana is just physically stuck on the Moon but everyone can still visit her, instead of a feeling of isolation as a consequence of her saving the world, there was nothing to worry about, everything was going to be happy go lucky as usual.

- Part 1.5 : a breath of fresh air that wouldn't last

This part, or half part, started off slow and uninteresting for me, but it was still refreshing to focus on a character often put on the sideline : Seele, it also brought back a character shown in the manga and a visual novel, Shigure Kira, which was unexpected but welcome, they were focusing on existing characters instead of creating new ones.

But the start and my interest in this part was slow, but then the character Vita was introduced, a mischievous and humorous character that is still mysterious, a very interesting character with a lot of personality.

The 2nd half of Salt Snow Holy City, was way better, we had an actual threat in the form of Sa and Vita, while also having a lot of interactions between characters that otherwise wouldn't interact a lot, especially Veliona and Sentience, those two were very fun to watch and listen.

And so was the arc with Moriarty and all the Vita's, my only problem with this entire half part was the reveal of Griseo, while it does make sense somewhat, and Su I was hoping they would let go of the Flamechasers all together and never bring them up, their arc was over and they were only characters in a separate side story, but they slowly became main characters.

The twist of Vita doing all she did to betray and eventually kill Sa just to gain the freedom she craved and could never get as a proxy was wonderfully done and a well deserved ending for such a character, and it felt deserved and earned, she used everyone to advance her plans forward, and only relied on the other characters help at the end, when the final blow needed to be dealt, Kiana had to do it for Vita, but other than that Vita is the one who made her plan, worked towards it for years and manipulated Sa ; it was her win, she deserved it.

All and all, this entire half part felt so refreshing and made me hopeful for the future of the story... But unfortunately this miracle was just that, a short lived miracle the last bit of good writing Honkai Impact 3rd had.

Part 2 has a rough start, introducing a lot of characters in quite a shot amount of time and so the early bit felt quite rushed, but it slowed down once all the characters were introduced and set in the story it was quite good, and the threat of Perception was well set and the conclusion felt right... Or what I thought was the conclusion.

The twist of everything being a simulation from Dreamseeker's perspective just ruined everything, all the efforts went to waste and the ending suddenly felt worthless, it was just one of countless simulations so it meant nothing, all the emotial weight this had was gone.

I do like the mystery of Senadina, to at least have a bigger mystery connecting everything somewhat, and Vita's return to the story is one I am very happy about, it almost made me believe in MiHoYo again but as always, these moments of brightness in the other wise dark place the story is at are nothing more than dimly lit candles just about to go out.

- Honkai Star Rail : the false collaboration

It all started with a miscellaneous announcement of a Honkai Impact 3rd collab with Honkai Star Rail, Hi3rd collabing with other MiHoYo games happened before and it was very good, so we would get a collab character and outfit and lovely and funny noncanon event to go with it, everything should have been nice, I was on the fence due to the very bad Promare collab but I was hopeful, it was a collaboration between coworkers, they couldn't mess this up. Except they did, the moment it was revealed that Sparkle and other Honkai Star Rail related things were not noncanon events but fully main story canon.

Sparkle's introduction just created a whole mess in the timeline, her arrival in the mars computer happens before Welt's and Void Archive's departure, years before A Post Honkai Odyssey happens, it introduces the Solar System as a, weirdly, unreachable (supposedly protected by the Cocoon of Finality) place for Aeons and yet Sparkle and a random Messenger found it, that Messenger also sparks a new power scaling debate as she qualified Kiana as a "emanator" like entity, the interaction was not hinted at all throughout Penacony or anything Sparkle related prior to the collab happening, so it all just feels like a last minute decision to connect the two games, that were already connected through Welt and Void Archive.

From my point of view, there is no collaboration between the two games, this entire "event" and announcements were just to announce that the games were officially and connected as happening in the same Universe ; unlike collab valkyries Sparkle is fully gacha, an S-rank with no free way of being obtained, all collab characters are SP and farmable so this is already a suspicious play on Mihoyo's, and due to this Sparkle will have banner reruns after her banner ends, unlike collab that are only available in their patch, her stigmatas will be craftable despite being themed around her... All these points lead to the only possible conclusion : Sparkle was never a collaboration valkyrie, she is just a normal and permanent part 2 valkyrie. So the whole "collab" thing can only be assumed to be a bait of some kind, a bait for a valkyrie that is mediocre at best. A bait to lure in more spenders. A bait for money.

And so we reached the current end for the story, a beautiful story that unfortunately went downhill and the few good moments only ever lead to further disappointment, for we saw what they were capable of writing and producing and yet we were just let down, we were letdown more and more for one simple reason : the fandom kept praising the story, I barely saw complaints anywhere outside of my circle of friends, despite it getting worse and so mihoyo got away with writing worse and worse and worse until now, where we are at a point where salvation and redemption are no longer an option.

The fandom will crucify people who dare criticize the story because in their eyes mihoyo employees are some kind of Godly writers, hating a part will get you harassed, saying you dislike a character, especially Elysia and anything surrounding her, will get you seen as a bad person, this fandom has built so many layers of toxic positivity that it actively damaged the product. Mihoyo are not the sole responsible for the mess that Honkai Impact 3rd is, we are also sharing that responsability, for never calling mihoyo out their bad story choices, because the fandom kept "crying at the heartfelt stories" and because someone saying they disliked a fandom favorite was something worth getting bullied for, we like to call out other mihoyo games' fanbases toxic but we are no different, we are just as toxic if not more.

You may have noticed how I started to leave out details more and more as we progressed, simple answer I just skipped the story, because it was burning me out, going through long yet boring and non consequential stories was making want to stop playing, and so while I previously held the story above the gameplay and PvE aspect of the game, in current time that order has switched, and i skip story after reading summaries from CN to prioritize gameplay.

I also did not talk about events at all, and again it's really simple : the events, especially Captainverse, are really charming and well written, which is a very odd contrast to the main story, i focus more on those than the main story and find myself enjoying them even more ; this was a post to mostly complain and since I had nothing to complain about the events' writing I simply never mentioned them.

At least this whole thing is just my view of the whole thing, my view of the fandom, my view and opinion. And I just wanted it out of my chest.

I may add a portion about the character design, but this problem has mostly dissappeared since Part 2 began, so I don't feel the need to talk about it in details anymore, mihoyo moved on from that and so shall I.

[jmdbjk]

Episode 7: Still Purple

Beyond the Star, produced by HYBE Media Studio

"Every single one of our performances was significant to us, they are all precious memories." – Jimin

The song Butterfly starts and I know this episode is going to be hard to watch because I'm already tearing up.

This is a long post. Apologies. There's a lot to say about it.

They are talking about what concert memories mean the most to them:

Hobi says it was their first stadium concert at the Rose Bowl which was the most significant memory for him as far as which concert was the most memorable.

Jungkook says it was Chicago when it was the first time they'd ever performed in the rain:

Jin says it's when they perform IDOL that is his favorite concert memory.

Jimin says even though fans would see what he's talking about through photos but in real life, what they see from the stage is so beautiful, words can't do justice to describe it:

They reminisce about their concert at the Olympic Gymnastic Arena and recalling the emotions they felt then, that they had reached the top in 2016 are a very precious memory to them

Concerts are what they were made to do. Their type of performance, the big choreography, the big songs... big performances... belong on the live concert stage.

And now we're at the series of concerts that were to be their last before they really embark on Chapter 2: PTD Las Vegas.

BigHit/Hybe pulled out the stops for this one. The city of Las Vegas was all in and being the party city it is, it was one of the most fun and extravagant things I've ever witnessed.

I 1000% regret not going. I didn't know it was going to be the last chance for a long time.

They get to do things like attend a few concerts and visit the Bellagio Fountain when the fountains of water are set to the rhythm of Dynamite and Butter. I know Hobi has a video of Jungkook and Tae vibing to Dynamite at the Bellagio Fountain on his camera roll! Show it to us Hobi!!

Jimin, Yoongi and Namjoon went to the Silk Sonic concert.

I think it's curious that they do not mention the 2022 Grammy performance or event at all. When they left Seoul for this trip on March 28, 2022, Hobi was not with them because he had tested positive for covid prior to departure. Jungkook wasn't with them because he'd left the day before for the purpose of a work schedule but I don't remember what it was, and upon landing in the U.S. he tested positive for covid and had to quarantine until he had a negative test.

They were to perform at the Grammy Awards show on April 3, 2022. They were missing two members up until the day before the performance. Thankfully Hobi tested negative in time to catch a plane to Las Vegas:

Jungkook tested negative the day before the performance and was able to practice ONCE with the group. Here he is doing a Vlive while quarantining in his hotel room:

And after all that, they gave a performance of a lifetime during the Grammy Awards:

Anyway... I digress... just curious they make no mention of it at all...

Jungkook brought his boxing coach (Coach Tommy) and this might be the workout he was doing prior to joining Hobi, Tae and Jimin for that Vlive following one of their concerts.

Jungkook says the only thing he regrets about the previous 10 years was that it took him a while to realize certain things and then put them into practice.

Namjoon wonders what it would've been like had they ended things after ON and Yoongi reflects that they would've taken a break from November 2020, if the pandemic had not happened and they would've been on a break for about two and half years (for enlistment). They didn't expect the pandemic to go on for so long (none of us did).

Namjoon wonders if he stayed true to the lyrics he wrote in ON while living his life. He thought they were running straight ahead all this time but as it turns out, they had gone in a circle and were back at the starting line. He contemplates what to do to run forward again.

The last PTD Las Vegas concert is bittersweet for all of us. So much has happened to culminate with this.

Tae says it's time for them to organize their thoughts so they can come back with a better image and performance and they aren't saying they are done, they are saying they've worked hard and now they need the time to grow.

And then we see Jimin in the car, on the way home after their last PTD Seoul concert on March 13, 2020. He is on the phone inviting someone over. Guess who?

It looks like he's taken a shower. He shows us a pot of fish cake soup his dad made for him. Jimin prepares three place settings, fetches 3 bottles of soju, and pardon me but the fact Jimin has a can of spray cheez in his auxiliary kitchen changes everything for me.

Why is he consuming that and why does he store it above the kitchen sink in is extra kitchen? Why do these expensive apartments have two kitchens? Jimin barely needs one kitchen but he has two...

Anyway, Jungkook arrives and they proceed to eat and drink.

While they are having a conversation about what time they go to bed and wake up, Jimin says he might sleep until 4 pm and then this ensues:

When Jungkook makes the remark that he sounds like Yoongi, off-camera, you can hear someone stifling their wheezing laugh. Staff camera man is in on the joke and the documentary editors are too as they cut briefly to Yoongi eating take out chicken.

The editors were wrong for that! HAHAHAHAH!

Then Tae and Namjoon talk about and show us their living spaces and how they feel living on their own.

Namjoon is very particular about his space and he says its very precious to him. He says the way one curates their living space speaks a lot about their personality and taste. I agree 100%. He says he wants to show us his space so we can know what kind of person he is.

Tae says he decorated his own space, commissioning art pieces for it. He has an extensive collection of vinyl records and puts on a yellow vinyl disc that appears to be Betty Wright, a recording of a live performance. He says boredom can be a given when living alone and he says he looks for Small but Definite Happiness in his daily life. SDH. We should all strive to do that.

Then we're back at Jimin's and Jungkook is cooking more food, chopping vegetables. FYI, that Miele induction cooktop is about $3,500.

Watching Jimin retell the story of when one of his friends pointed out that he seemed depressed, was not himself, was one of the most revealing things we've ever heard from Jimin.

And now he feels he's in a very healthy place. I'm gonna elaborate on this in another blog post when I'm done with this series.

All in all, the members had to learn to live alone after living together for 8 years or more for some of them.

Yoongi reflects on running so hard in their 20s. He wonders if they shouldn't have enjoyed themselves more and not let the pressures become overwhelming. Regardless, now that he's reached 30, all those worries and thoughts have disappeared and he feels liberated.

I've realized some of these interviews for these episodes were conducted on the day they traveled from Seoul to Las Vegas because they are wearing the same clothing.

Episode 8 coming soon... and more.

[dewitty1]

Fic Recs Wrap Up October 2024ꐑ(ꐌ◡ꐌꐐ)࿐࿔࿓ཥ•̬͡•ོཤ(((༼•̫͡•༽)))←～（o ｀▽´ )oΨ

In Another Life (I Would Make You Stay) by aboutmalfoy

Seven years out from the war, Hermione comes to Harry with a way to undo the lasting damage done to the Wizarding World, and save those once lost. The catch is, only Harry will remember anything differently. When Harry wakes up in the world where Voldemort never came to be, he’ll have to navigate the life he never lived as if he’d been there all along. Except, a version of Harry was there all along—and he may not be so easily overridden. (Rec Post)

White Horses by JStevens

They say there are no white horses—those that we think of as white are really just a faded deceitful gray. And if there are no white horses, certainly there are no true heroes who will come riding in on one to save us from all our pain. After learning of the prophecy that will change his future, Harry returns to Hogwarts School for sixth year and finds that not everyone is who he thought they were. It seems that he is not. Definitely Draco Malfoy is not. As he tries to find a path to the end of his time at Hogwarts, he will have to grapple with questions of who to trust and who to love while navigating a world full of threats. This is a story of how we sometimes deceive ourselves and others, but hopefully find something true in the end. (Rec Post)

Recursion by Tessa Crowley (tessacrowley) @tessacrowley

A process is recursive when it defines or contains itself; e.g., the Fibonacci sequence, which determines the next number as the sum of the previous two. But not all recursive processes are mathematical. Recursion can happen in a temporal context when, for instance, the powerful magical force that is true love drags you back in time so it can create itself, endangering the fate of the Wizarding World—not to mention the very fabric of space and time—along the way. ( Rec Post)

To have a Home by Aulophobia

Not quite a decade after the war, Draco Malfoy was happy with his quiet little Muggle life in Oxford. He had a small group of friends from the university he’d attended, and colleagues from the law firm where he worked as a solicitor. He played folk music on his violin around the city. And he volunteered to provide legal services getting mostly idiot teenagers out of trouble with the law. His life was full. He had no contact with the magical world, and all was the way he liked it. And the feeling of emptiness in his chest, the feeling some part of him was missing, was at least better than the alternative. Or at least it was until the last few months when he kept getting called down to the police station to get Harry Potter out of trouble. Indecent exposure and possession was one thing, but the latest charge was for murder. OR Harry and Draco find each other again after the war in Oxford, a completely non-magical city. Together they solve the mystery of the city which hates all wizards but them. (Rec Post)

Here are a few more fics I've read recently that y'all might like to check out as well!(ノﾟ∀ﾟ)ノ━☆ﾟ･*:.｡. .｡.:*･.*･｡ﾟ*:・ﾟ✧

Trade My Heart For Honey by MyNameIsThunder @thunderfiction

A witch who thinks she’s a Seer, a Seer who thinks she’s a witch, a former nemesis-turned-something-turned-acquaintance who thinks they could be friends, and a Scottish village full of Muggles who think this is as much their business as the fair folk in the woods. Draco is going to prove them all wrong. (So so good, and it's for me?!?!? ♡✧( ु•⌄• )💜💙💚💛❤💗💕💖)

Change the Ending by Anonymous for @hd-fan-fair H/D Muggle Fair 2024

When Draco gets hit by a curse that makes him essentially allergic to magic, Harry takes him in as a favour to Ron and Kingsley to teach him how to survive without it while they wait for a cure.

In the Fight for Someone's Heart, the Best Armour is Armani by Anonymous for @hd-fan-fair H/D Muggle Fair 2024

Harry is a famous actor. Draco is his stylist, who can't help but fall in love with him.

[ART & FIC] Starry, Silver Anchor by Anonymous for @hd-fan-fair H/D Muggle Fair 2024

Although no one can see it, Harry’s struggling and barely holding on. When he's given a chance, he asks for his deepest desire: for the war to never happen.

( •ॢ◡-ॢ)-♡ HI! I'm back! I hope y'all didn't miss me too much! Please enjoy these fics as much as I have! Happy reading! xoxo Carey  (◍•ᴗ•◍)♡ ✧*💜💙💚💛❤💗💕💖

[acaplaya-musings]

VoicePlay 'Zat You, Santa Claus? - thoughts/commentary

Oh I loved this so much! Over on my "main" blog, BismuthBookshelf, I made a post like a week ago (about my favourite non-VP/Geoff Christmas music videos) where I mentioned how I was wanting more jazzy Christmas music, and this might not be the same sort of vibe as Man With The Bag or I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm, but it's still great! And of course it's wonderful to see J with the group yet again!

Okay so starting off with the set design: Filmed at Pattycake, duh, and the brickwork kinda looks like a set that VoicePlay and/or Geoff have used before (like Geoff's Shenandoah video kinda?), except for the windows and the vertical wood planks. Idk, I'm writing this before the BTS video is out but I'll update it if I figure anything out (EDIT: yeah the woodplanks were added in for this shoot, and maybe the windows too, as the "bricks" aren't actually bricks)

Love all the Christmas decor, like the carousel and the felt/fabric Christmas calendar(?) thing hanging up, and the tree! (How long did that take to set up and decorate? EDIT: actually Layne's wife Cyndi helped a lot with set design!)) And of course the Voiceplay logo symbol on top of the tree is brilliant. At least a few Patrons have already been wishing for that to be an item in VP's merch store. Also the five stockings hanging up have each of the guys' first initials on them! <3 (From closest to camera to furthest away, it's G, C, J, E, & L).

The guys are all looking very snazzy in this video. Love Cesar's scarf, love Layne's red sweater(?) (the most colour that any of them are wearing in the video), and honestly Geoff is really working that long-sleeve black turtleneck, man! 👀 (And obligatory shoutout to Geoff's hair, of course, *chefs kiss*)

I'm of course just typing this all from the Patreon early access thing, but fun fact: this is both the second Christmas video and the second consecutive video of this year to be filmed without an actual cameraman! But unlike using an iPhone like in the previous cases, this was filmed using a robotic camera arm, fully programmed to the music, able to repeat precise movements with each take! I highly doubt Voiceplay are gonna give up on using human camera operators completely, but this is still a cool thing to have as a potential option for video shoots! (EDIT: it's called "Cinebot", and a guy called Ben Meyers helped out with programming/operating it!)

Right, now time to talk more about the vocals and the song arrangement itself!

As per with previous thoughts/commentary posts, most of these notes are after a second watch, with a few extra thoughts mixed in from additional watches, because as I've said before, the first-time watch is just for the vibes

Y'know when I listened to the cover of Zat You Santa Claus on the Peppermint Winter album, I was like "eh it doesn't really have much of a Christmassy vibe imo, gives me more spy movie vibes?" but like with this version I don't even care (the video makes up for it, it's fine), and by the the time you're reading this post, this song will have replaced the old version in my Christmas Spotify playlist!

On my second watch-through, I had the song lyrics up on my phone (while the video played on my laptop), and that made me realize that a few lines got slightly reworded, and then there's a whole section that's not in the original! The bit where they're singing "he's coming for you/hope you've not been bad" or something like that is definitely new, but not new for VoicePlay, because I went back and relistened to the 2012 Peppermint Winter cover and that section is in there as well.

Doing a relisten of their previous cover also made me realise that this arrangement really is different to the older one, even genre-wise, and I like this one more!

Okay I'm gonna do a third watch-through, pausing to take notes as I go, just to make sure I don't miss anything or forget to mention anything here!

A nice bit of whistling from Cesar at the start! (Seriously can everyone whistle except me? 😅)

"Is that you, Santa Claus?" pfft I love the little bit of dramatic flair Geoff put on the delivery of that line 😁

"Are you bringing a present for me?" ooh that harmony at the start of that line! I don't wanna say it's dissonant, because I'm not a music expert and I really don't know, but it sounded "different" and I liked it!

"Something pleasant that you can present; a present for me" this is one of the main line changes, because in the original (and in their 2012 cover as well, in fact), it's "something pleasantly pleasant for me". But sure, why not change it up a bit?

Eli killing it as always!

Oh man I'm almost tempted to make a screenshot compilation just for the "he's coming to get ya" section alone ngl. All their facial expressions are just so great! I feel like I gotta watch this video five times and just focus on a different person each time!

I'm assuming the YouTube description will confirm it (and/or the BTS video), but Patrons are guessing that "Santa" (the one handing over the present) is Tony, which'd make sense (though I'm also guessing that the voice of Santa would be Eli, since he did the same thing in Mission Jingle Bells and Oogie Boogie's Song, and was "Sandy Claws" in Jingle Bell Rock last year.

UPDATE TO THE ABOVE: Nope, that was actually Bucky as Santa Claus! Or as the YouTube description puts it: "Zat Ur Hands? - Bucky Claus" 😂

Omg now I'm just thinking that it would've been really funny if Geoff had subtly sang "Is that you, Sandy Claws", as a fun little double throwback, lol.

Not sure what I love more - Eli killing it on lead vocals yet again, or Geoff just fully grinning as Eli does so 😄

"Who's there, who is it? Are you - stopping for a -" Layne!!! I love him honestly, and it's always great when he gets a little bit of lead vocals.

J's Louis Armstrong impression was freaking amazing, and so was the scatting!

Yeah I love this song and video so much - it's so fun, they all look like they had a great time filming it, and it's such a freaking vibe!

And that's VoicePlay's final song of 2024 (SIKE! We still got Party Of Your Lifetime to come, but hey, I didn't know that when I was first writing up this post!) other than some VoicePlay Minis and stuff (and Party Of Your Lifetime!). I of course have not a single clue what VP has in store for 2025, but that's just part of the greatness of VoicePlay! You never know what you're gonna get next, but it's always gonna be amazing in its own way.

Happy Holidays, and see you soon for both some 2024 roundup posts from me, as well as whatever Voiceplay has been cooking up next! ;)

[heavy-swing]

Breakout

Aurienne de Lanencourt is dragged in on charges of heresy, and decides to confront them head-on (that is, by running away).

As I mentioned in my previous post, I've had Aurienne trapped in my brain for a long time, so I'd decided to write a bit of her backstory to help give her a bit of form in the world, and now that you all have seen her, it's only fair you can now read a bit about her too!

I do intend to fill in both some earlier details about her past as well as some later stuff about how she fits into Aelita's journey, but for now, I offer this.

You can check it out on AO3 or read below:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/63373978

“Ser Aurienne de Lanencourt! You have been charged with the crime of fomenting heresy and aiding and abetting heretics! What have you to say in your defense?”

Aurienne dignified the clergy presiding over the proceedings with nothing save for a cold stare.

“I invoke my right to trial by combat.”

“Very well! You will be held until the morrow, at which time you and the accuser shall fight until yielding. Under the watchful gaze of Halone, the victor’s claim shall be judged to be in the right.” The magistrate looked up from his notes. “Is that clear?”

A stone-faced nod is all he got in return.

“So be it! Dismissed.”

At the sound of a gavel, she felt one of the guards flanking her push her in the direction of the exit, back towards the gaol. She remained silent as she walked, not wishing to draw any more attention to what she was planning.

The guards escorted her out of the courtroom and down a flight of stone steps, and along a lengthy hallway. At its end was a storage area and guard room of sorts, where the seized weapons of those held awaiting their chance to fight for freedom were kept, with two more paths branching out from that towards the cells.

As they approached this storage room, she eyed her own axe and armor, up against one of the walls. She forced herself to look away, again trying to keep a low profile. I'll have them back soon enough, anyway.

The guards continued to march her down the right-hand hallway to her cell, which was mercifully unoccupied. She had heard reports about how overcrowded it got every time the Heaven's Ward made one of its periodic sweeps through the Brume, so she counted herself lucky she'd gotten caught when she did.

Her previous post had been Falcon’s Nest, patrolling the wasteland of the Coerthan highlands for heretics and dragons. That was what she was supposed to be doing, anyway.

She'd actually spent most of her time using “patrols” as a cover for running supplies from the Ishgardian outpost out to the various groups of so-called heretics– the people trying to survive out in the harsh conditions of the wilds without any of the admittedly meager luxuries the Ishgardian soldiers were afforded.

It wasn't helping to end the war, exactly, but she'd learned pretty quickly as she came up through the ranks of the knights that the war ending anytime soon was about as likely as a spring flower growing in the Highlands.

All it had taken was a couple of encounters with these people, described as vicious and brutal by her commander, for her to realize that they too were just fighting to survive. Fighting to be free of the ironically draconian state of Ishgard.

It started with a loaf of bread here, a box of medicine there, until it had grown to a regularly scheduled shipment of supplies that required a chocobo and cart to haul. Sneaking it out had been simple enough: she told anyone who stopped her that she was taking supplies out to the camps in the field, and the men stationed at the camps were so grateful to get any supplies at all that they didn't think twice about what might've been missing.

Unfortunately, her perfect plan couldn't stay perfect forever. One of the higher ups in Falcon's Nest had been gravely injured in a skirmish, and the person who'd replaced him was… a bit of a tight-arse. More stringent patrols, checking inventory counts, the works. She'd just started to figure out a new way to work around this system when one of the “heretics” she'd been meeting with suddenly approached a patrol she was a part of, clearly expecting supplies.

Before she could even attempt to communicate with the poor sod, to signal that maybe it wasn't the best idea to let her fellow guards know that they knew each other, he'd already called out to her. In the blink of an eye, he lay dead in the snow and she had two blades at her throat.

She was promptly taken back to Falcon's Nest in chains, and the rest was history.

Aurienne was shaken back to reality by the sound of the cell door closing behind her. She sat on the hard stone slab that resembled a bed, and let out a long exhale. Probably best to rest. I'll need every onze of strength for tomorrow. She lowered herself down onto her stone and pulled the sorry excuse for a blanket they'd given her over herself, trying her best to sleep while her mind began running through her plan.

—

She woke some time later, with only the sparsest hints of daylight filtering down from above as a clue that time had passed. She didn't stir, though. She knew it was better to wait.

She laid in silence for some time, until eventually she heard the sounds of the guards coming down the hall to retrieve her. They banged loudly on the bars, clearly thinking her still asleep. Time for a show.

She sat up slowly, trying her best to manage a facial expression at the intersection of confused and exhausted. “‘m up, y’don’t have to make all that racket.”

The guard in front didn't bother responding to her comment directly, though she could see that the one standing further back was laughing a little. Good.

“We've come to escort you to your trial, which will begin shortly. If you wish to retrieve your arms and armor before the fight, come with us.”

“Probably wouldn't stand a chance without it,” she replied, doing her best to make the outcome feel like a foregone conclusion. She walked to the door and watched as the lead guard unlocked it. She even waited patiently as they closed it behind her, and matched their pace as they escorted her back towards the makeshift armory, artificially wobbling and staggering a little for effect.

“You have a quarter bell to ready yourself, after which we will escort you to the arena. Try anything else and we will not hesitate to cut you down, heretic. Understand?”

Aurienne nodded, exaggerating it a bit to make herself look scared. Her mediocre acting wasn't likely to make a huge difference, but if it could get the guards to relax even just a little more than usual, then maybe she'd stand a chance.

She grabbed some of the pieces of her armor and started dressing herself, moving quickly to ensure she didn't have to leave anything behind. Leggings went on first, then her chainmail sabatons over top. She turned away from the guards as she traded the prison shirt for a thicker undershirt, trying to seem uncomfortable despite having done all of this hundreds of times. She hefted the chainmail haubergeon over her head, using gravity to help it slide down her arms and torso before putting on her gauntlets and tightening the straps to her liking.

Out of the corner of her eye, she began to notice that the guards were both paying her a bit more attention now that they'd watched her suit up. It seemed her old habits from years of service had reared their head, and now all three of them knew it. She picked up her helmet from the table, and as she stood back up to retrieve her axe from the far side of the room, she heard the jangling sound of what were probably shackles being readied to bind her wrists and ankles together. She walked to her axe and grabbed it from its place leaning up against a shelf, and feigned looking it over as she heard the chains and footsteps approaching from behind.

She took a deep breath, waiting until the noise got closer. Until he was right behind her. Right within range.

In a flash, she spun around, extending her arms to their full length as she swung the flat side of her axe directly at the guard’s head. A loud clang rang through the halls as he crumpled into a heap of chainmail and plate. His partner barely had time to draw his sword before she was upon him, closing the gap between them with a speed that was almost primal.

She swung her axe upward as she charged ahead, scraping it against the stone floor. Its handle met the guard's blade at an awkward angle; the force of the impact wrenched the sword from his grip and sent it flying across the room. Before he could cry for help, she followed her upswing with an overhead smash, once again choosing the flat side of the axe head to knock him out cold. He fell to his knees and then forward onto his face, the noise of his armor the last sound he made before the corridor was silent once more.

The quiet didn't last long. Aurienne heard the sounds of footsteps and shouting echoing through the halls, and she immediately took off in the direction that she was pretty sure led up to the surface.

The noise of the guards got a bit louder as she approached the staircase that had brought her down here the day before, but no one seemed to be onto her just yet. This was the point where she simply let her instincts carry her forward. She knew hesitating would be her undoing, which left surprise as her most effective strategy.

As she reached the top step, she pushed off and launched herself into the closed door that awaited her, shoulder first. The wood gave way to her momentum, the door itself separating from the latch and hinges in a shower of splinters. The noise of the impact echoed through the sentencing chambers, where the same priest from the day before was no doubt consigning some other poor bastard to death or imprisonment. All heads turned to the sound, but she paid them no mind as she charged forward, past the befuddled guards and straight across the room to the far door.

She crashed through that door, too, drawing more attention from the main atrium. It doesn't matter. Just keep running. She sprinted ahead, most of the onlookers jumping out of her way in surprise rather than attempting to apprehend her. In yet another stroke of luck, the main doors slowly eased open as she ran towards them, likely someone else entering or leaving. She took the opportunity and dashed past them and out into the cold air of Ishgard.

Down to the Steps now. You can outrun them.

She made a beeline for the lower parts of the city. The bridge connecting Ishgard with southern Coerthas was her goal, and if she got there before the reports of her escape did, then she'd be home free. She reached a familiar intersection, one she knew well from her youth and adolescence. A right turn here would lead back to the Lanencourt estate, back to her family, back to what used to be her home. She barely slowed down as she hung a left.

Aurienne tore past the lower entrance of the Forgotten Knight, taking a back street to avoid passing in front of the knight headquarters, only slowing down and shouldering her axe when she reached the aetheryte plaza.

As before, she heard commotion off in the distance from the districts above her, but it seemed word hadn't made it down to the front gate just yet. She took a deep breath, composed herself, and marched purposefully towards the gatehouse at the entrance to the Steps of Faith.

“State your name and business,” the guard called out to her, barely looking up from his paperwork.

“Ser Lanencourt, here on assignment to Camp Dragonhead.” She paused for a second before adding, “–On special request of Lord Haurchefant.” It was another long shot, but if anyone might have the heart to bail her out given her circumstances, it might be him. At least if the tales of his kindness were anything to go by.

“Don't see you on the list, you sure?”

“It was a last minute request, you can take it up with him yourself if you don't believe me.”

The guard sighed, clearly weighing the risk to his job against the hassle of sending someone to track down the man in charge of Camp Dragonhead.

“All right, go ahead. Don't cause any trouble, though.”

“I won't, sir.”

The gate in front of her swung open, and she strode through it at a brisk pace, not wishing to remain in such an exposed choke point for any longer than she needed to.

The wind howled as she crossed the bridge, one determined step after another. She tried not to think too much about what lay in her wake: the guards, the chaos, the broken doors; her family, their reputation surely dashed and left wondering what had become of her; those dead out in the snow because she wasn’t strong enough or clever enough to help them. She tried to force her wandering mind to focus instead on what lay ahead of her; where she might go, and what she might do once she got there.

Mercifully, the stone-walled isolationism of Ishgard would work to her benefit once she escaped its confines. She knew that the other city-states of Eorzea weren’t on friendly terms with Ishgard, so it was highly unlikely the Ishgardian soldiers would chase her past the borders of Coerthas. Once she was across that threshold, though, she grew less certain. What little she’d heard of Gridania’s views on outsiders wasn’t reassuring, not to mention the fact that the Lancer’s guild there apparently had some communication with the Ishgardian dragoons, so going there put her at risk of capture and extradition. Ul’dah didn’t really seem the place for her either: the climate alone was enough to put her off the idea, but she’d also heard rumors of a rapidly growing refugee crisis that she didn’t wish to add to.

That left Limsa Lominsa, across the Strait of Merlthor to the southwest.

Aurienne had never even seen the sea, let alone been on a boat, but what she’d gathered from the odd trader and traveler made it seem like a good place for someone to disappear. There was lots of work to be had from people who didn’t ask too many questions. And right about now, that was exactly what she needed.

She snapped back to her senses as the far gatehouse on the bridge seemed to suddenly appear in front of her, the gate itself swinging open as she approached. The guard there offered a silent nod, which she returned, trying to avoid direct eye contact should someone happen to recognize her.

Thankfully, no one had. Whatever commotion she'd left behind must have left the guards and knights scrambling to figure out where to start looking. That, or they were just really out of shape.

The thought of winded guards huffing and puffing as they ran after her brought a smirk to her face that was hidden from the world by her helmet.

She stepped off the bridge on the Coerthan side, from the hard stone onto the snow-covered roads that wound into the mountains and forest. The road on her left led to Camp Dragonhead, where she'd claimed to be going, but the last thing she wanted to do is be where they thought she would be when word eventually made it to the bridge. She turned right.

Aurienne trekked through Whitebrim, through the narrow rock of Daniffen Pass, and past the giant crater of red stone that bled through the snowfall on the far side. She constantly checked back over her shoulder and scanned the horizon ahead for any sign of people who might be hunting for her, but no one ever appeared. It was just her, the snow, and the forest, with the occasional wild beast for a bit of excitement.

She avoided taking the direct route into Gridania past the Observatorium, and opted instead for the southwestern path through the Hall of the Seven Echoes. She'd heard that it connected to a settlement called Revenant's Toll, and that it might be somewhere to figure out how to accomplish the next leg of her journey. As she took a determined first step into the narrow canyon, her stomach growled unceremoniously. Might also be a place to find some food.

[hersweetrevenge]

corey cunningham headcanons [volume three]

corey has my heart, i want to know every single detail about him, and if i am not given that information then i will simply make it up (he told me through prophetic dreams). based on this set of questions. and if you missed the previous instalments, no you didn't: volume one and volume two.

[credit where credit is due, some of these hcs are shared with @/slutforstabbings, and i have merely adopted into my own belief system and expanded on certain points that i latched onto, so please go read through blake's stuff too because they actually know what they're talking about !!]

WARNING for angst, brief talks of sex, and mentions of child abuse, child death, mental health, trauma and sexuality.

[image sources: X, X]

What’s the maximum amount of time your character can sit still with nothing to do?

corey had a pretty isolated childhood, the internet wasn't really a thing for a while, joan put a lot of restrictions on his television time, and he never had play dates or the chance to hang out with people outside of school. therefore corey is the daydream king, always in his own little world. corey had a lot of spare time and he can sit and zone out for hours, unbothered, if he has the time. he's been chastised so many times by joan for not paying attention or being away with the fairies.

however, that's not to say he can't pay attention when he needs to, he has a very good attention span when he has something to focus on, like school work or reading or watching movies. but, if it's a mindless task he can do without thinking then his mind does tends to wander.

How easy is it for your character to laugh?

i've said this before but the way having a laughing fit with corey until my sides hurt would literally fix me.

corey has a funny sense of humour, kind of dark but kind of dorky. pre-accident corey laughs pretty easily. at school he had a kind of off-beat friend group who had an overall off-beat sense of humour that occupied them in the cafeteria or while they slacked off in gym class.

post-accident corey holds back from making his own jokes or being funny, like he doesn't know the social rules anymore. like he doesn't deserve to laugh or thinks people will be mad at him for thinking he can be funny.

How do they put themselves to bed at night (reading, singing, thinking?)

as previously mentioned, corey has a lot of time to think. he struggles to sleep well at night and honestly his daydreaming can make things worse if he latches onto a thought and keeps following it when he should be trying to clear his mind.

if he wants some stimulation though, he goes on wikipedia. he will fall asleep having fallen down a wiki rabbit hole and wake up in the morning on the page for like the 1847 great fire of bucharest with no memory of how he ended up there.

How easy is it to earn their trust? How easy is it to earn their mistrust?

it's not that easy to earn corey's trust. corey is used to being in a pretty emotionally volatile environment, so he does a lot of premature damage control around people that he doesn't know well enough to read their moods and behaviour. however, once he feels more comfortable, he's a lot more open (though still has a sense of wariness in the back of his mind). basically, it's not impossible to earn his trust.

post-accident corey is a different story though, he has an automatic distrust of everyone. he can't assume anyone intentions are solely good for a long, long time. honestly, he doesn't trust most people, he canonically only goes to one gas station because he trusts they won't speak to him. and he distrusts his co-workers at prevo for different reasons, i.e. he's been low-level pranked more times than he cares to remember.

What triggers nostalgia for them most often? Do they enjoy that feeling?

corey gets good nostalgia and bad nostalgia.

bad nostalgia is usually something to do with joan, or remembering how he felt as a child when he was on edge so often. spaghetti truly was joan's worst meal so the smell, taste, texture and look of spaghetti is something he can't really stand anymore. if he never eats spaghetti again, it'll be too soon. rabbit paraphernalia give a lot of bad nostalgia.

corey's sense of good nostalgia is pretty specific. good nostalgia comes from watching old movies. he loves westerns and anything cowboy adjacent. a lot of the shows he watched as a kid were older cartoons so he gets a lot of nostalgia from those too. the smell of night time, where everything feels kind of dewy is good nostalgia for him, as well as the smell of the woodwork room at school.

What were they told to stop doing most often as a child?

i've mentioned before that as a baby, corey was actually very content and not fussy at all, which joan was unreasonably pleased about -- he was her perfect, happy, chubby-cheeked baby. however, once he hit the terrible twos and developed some autonomy, that's when joan's control issues started to really kick in with her parenting.

joan told corey off for doing all sorts of things as a child -- fidgeting too much, being too boisterous, getting grass stains on his clothes, not finishing his dinner, meddling with the rabbits (or anything else around the house), watching cartoon network, not holding her hand around the store, playing with a kid she doesn't approve of, asking too many questions -- the list is honestly endless, and not all of these misdemeanours have any logic behind them other than joan's moods and keeping corey on his toes.

Do they swear? Do they remember their first swear word?

he swears sometimes but not that much. his first swear word was probably 'shit' (he overheard joan mutter it once), like out in the yard at recess him and his little friends all went around in a circle and said the worst swears they knew. once he hit middle school and high school, swearing becomes more common and he sprinkles it through his vocab. then when he starts at prevo it's a much more rough-and-ready attitude to language and he gets (light-heartedly) teased for how much more reserved he comes across compared to the other mechanics.

joan would kill him if she ever heard him swear, so he'd never dream of swearing in front of her. he has a distinct line he draws between his language at home and outside.

What lie do they most frequently remember telling? Does it haunt them?

corey lies a lot, but none of his lies weigh too heavily on his conscience.

corey would sneak out at night to parties and joan never found out about it. he can navigate his house is total darkness as to not wake his mom, and to his credit joan never found out. he used to lie about his day when he was in college all the time, and he lies saying that he comes straight home after work now.

i guess you could say he emotionally lies a lot? it's easier to placate joan with being agreeable than to admit anything (to himself or joan).

How do they deal with an itch found in a place they can’t quite reach?

joan used to (and still does) tell him off for fidgeting so he will restrain himself until he can leave the room and will then become a grizzly bear and itch his back on the nearest doorframe.

Are they easily embarrassed?

yes. end post.

but seriously, he is pretty easily embarrassed. corey has never had a very good self esteem, he honestly is under the impression he's kind of unlikable and that all his actions are under some kind of social scrutiny.

pre-accident his self confidence was healing a little bit with his growing independence, so he could more easily brush things off but awkward moments still stick in his brain for him to agonise over later.

although he's learnt to deal with it in most situations, if he's feeling more vulnerable or he's with someone he really likes/admires then he does not cope well when he feels like he's being made fun of -- he gets all defensive and sulky.

What is their favourite number?

i don't think corey has a favourite number, but if he had to pick one, i think it'd either be something like a mathematically "special" number, or something sentimental like his dad's birthday.

If they were asked to explain the difference between romantic and platonic or familial love, how would they do so?

oh man, this is not corey's forte at all. corey does not have a very good grasp on (his own) boundaries or the lines between different types of relationships.

i've said this a million times before (and no one has stopped me yet heehee), but because he's so used to the lines being pretty blurry with joan and having such an insular upbringing, he doesn't really know how to draw lines between how he loves someone. he's a real all or nothing type of person -- he's only ever learnt how to put all his feelings onto one person. joan wants that person to corey, because corey is that person to her.

subsequently, corey has only really experienced familial love in this abusive way, so projects the opposite (and what he reasons to be "normal") onto his imagined relationship with his father, idolising him to an unrealistic extent.

platonic is a sort of grey area for him, he tends to feel emotions either very intensely or not at all. he can go from really "loving" someone (either a friend he already has or someone he wishes he could befriend) to being mostly indifferent. the strength of his emotions tend to mean he can't really pinpoint exactly what he desires from the friendship/relationship. that's not to say he doesn't understand what "being friends" is, he does, but it doesn't always feel as poignant for him. it's something he was starting to figure out in high school and college, but then regressed with after the accident.

[this isn't the case for everyone] for corey romantic attraction and sexual attraction are usually linked, so romance does becomes slightly easier to differentiate. however, coming back to his boundary issues, even if he undeniably feels romantic love for someone, he's hesitant to communicate it unless he's figured out "the rules". everyone has rules (boundaries) to learn, and once he understands them, corey knows how to play the game -- he can do what he has to to be loved/wanted/tolerated enough to satiate his own feelings.

Why do they get up in the morning? 

currently, it's because ronald will kick his ass if he doesn't show up to work. well, ronald is usually pretty lenient on him, (maybe too lenient, and the other mechanics know corey doesn't get as much shit because he's ronald's step-kid). corey does actually like going to work though, his dream didn't pan out the way he expected but he does love being a mechanic -- it's just dampened by the rest of his circumstances.

corey has never been very good at getting up in the morning though, and back when he was at school he was no stranger to nearly missing the bus every morning.

during the manslaughter trial, he had so much to do, between trips to his lawyers office and then the courthouse once the trial actually starts, he is stressed enough that he gets up and ready for the day pretty early and then just sits and worries until someone tells him what to do.

after the trial though, he honestly just doesn't get up in the morning. he has no job, no social life, and honestly no reason to do anything at all. he spends most of his time in bed, unless joan nags him into showering, eating or running errands with her, or if he has an appointment with his shrink.

 Is sex something that they’re comfortable speaking about? To whom? 

as previously mentioned, corey is pretty self conscious so he won't admit to a crush under any circumstances, and he doesn't have a lot of his own experiences to talk about, so he's kind of refrained when talking about sex. he is a known prude, to be honest.

but, he is also a teenage boy with a weird friend group, so sex is a frequent topic. he can't talk about sex in regards to himself at that point, but he'll laugh at jokes and is kind of enthralled by hearing anecdotes (not that his friends have many).

in a relationship, i think it takes corey a while to open up and be comfortable talking about sex outside of doing the act itself. dirty talk makes him blush, and he's never really had a lot of experience or opportunity to seriously think about what he likes and then be able to convey that out loud.

 What are their thoughts on marriage? 

i don't think corey cares about the legal aspects, but he does like the idea of marriage. devoting yourself to one person and one person only, whom you love dearly, forever and ever until you both die? literally exactly what corey wants, the legal part doesn't really matter.

the only wedding he's been to was when joan and ronald got married at the courthouse. he was 15 and honestly had surprisingly few feelings about the whole thing -- he caught on pretty early on that his mom and ronald were hardly "in love" but this is what adults do, so here he is in his best clothes and thinking about the wedding cake he'll get to eat later. this is partly why he doesn't care too much about the legal side; anyone can get married, but the real true proven commitment if what love really is.

corey would be more than happy with a courthouse wedding himself, he just wants to be with his s/o forever, so a simple, no guests, sign on the line type wedding is good enough to get the job done.

 What is their preferred mode of transportation? 

motorbike, of course. he knew his dad had ridden a motorbike since he found some old photos, but corey never actually rides one himself until ronald gives him the kawasaki. he knew theoretically how to ride, because he knows the mechanics of a basic motorbike, but he truly learns as he goes when he fixes up his own bike. the motorbike gives him a huge sense of freedom, and fulfils all of his easy rider (1969) and the wild one (1953) fantasies.

corey learnt how to drive at 16 through drivers ed, but joan rarely lets him drive her car, and he obviously can't afford his own. sometimes she lets him drive them home from the store, but she is a serious backseat driver so it's sort of just a nightmare for everyone involved.

corey hasn't travelled very far before, so he's never been on a train, but i think he'd enjoy it. long journeys where he can zone out and just look at the landscape? a very good combination for corey.

and how can we forget his trusty bicycle. corey learnt to ride a bike as a child, joan wasn't a very good teacher, but he got the hang of it pretty quickly anyway. corey has had his current bike for almost 10 years now. the chain constantly comes loose, and he's had to tape up the seat and the handle grips more times than he can count. it mostly does the job, and it did give him a lot more freedom as a teenager than he'd had before that.

 Who do they most regret meeting? 

is it cliche to say the allens? maybe so, but it's definitely the allens.

if he never met the allens then jeremy wouldn't have died and corey would have gone off to college and got his degree and a graduate job at mercedes or boeing or somewhere and --

mostly corey tries not to think about the "what ifs" but they do creep into his mind.

[and, if you're that way inclined, if corey had never met roger he could have saved himself so, so much heartache, and maybe not have ruined his perceptions of relationships for the foreseeable]

 Could they be considered lazy? 

on a superficial level, maybe. he sleeps in late and doesn't do any housework, so maybe out of context he could seem lazy, but he actually has a really good work ethic and likes to be doing something. joan doesn't enlist him to do chores because chores are skills and she wants him to be dependent on her.

he definitely is not lazy at work though. when he first started a prevo, he mostly just did grunt work and the easy tasks that the other mechanics were too busy for but still needed to get done. he pulled his weight, no one can deny that. a few years in, he still doesn't handle many full jobs himself, but he is trusted to do more specialised things.

 How hard is it for them to shake a sense of guilt? 

joan ingrained it in him to feel guilty about a lot of things that aren't his fault. baseline guilt like that he can cope with, he just grovels and submits himself enough to earn forgiveness and then the whole thing starts over the next time joan finds a bone to pick.

after the accident though, his guilt is pretty constant. everything serves as a reminder of what happened, and even if he got acquitted, he does feel like it was at least partly his fault jeremy died.

Do they have a system for remembering names, long lists of numbers, things that need to go in a certain order (like anagrams, putting things to melodies, etc)? 

corey has a great memory but he doesn't really have any particular system, things just stick with him. he's great with remembering conversations, and when he was studying he could retain information in maths/science pretty easily, but his "less strong" subjects required more work on his part.

he does remember all the states and their capitals because of the animaniacs song.

What memory do they revisit the most often? 

it's not his most frequent, but there's this memory that corey has about his dad that usually comes to him when he's on the cusp of sleeping and awake. subconsciously, i think he's aware that it's probably a false memory. wally "died" before corey could really form any proper memories of him, but he loves this one anyway. corey remembers himself, as a baby, laughing while his dad is holding him, maybe he's playing with him, or bouncing him on his knee, but the details are pretty fuzzy -- it's barely a fragment of a memory but it makes corey happy.

a memory that has involuntarily has made it's home in corey's brain is from the accident. the blood was bad, but mostly it's the sound that corey can't forget. that sick thud sound.

How do they feel about children? 

pre-accident corey didn't care much about children. he doesn't dislike them, but he doesn't really interact with them (he doesn't have any family, and at the houses he does yard work, the parents tend to keep their kids out of his way so he can work without dodging any kids). he's kind to them though, if a little awkward.

post-accident, corey avoids kids as much as possible. he's no more mean to them, but seeing kids just brings back too many memories of the accident and also it just is not good to be seen near kids when you're regularly called a kid killer in public.

corey never wanted his own kids. maybe in some half-baked daydream he thought about a life of college, then a salary job and marriage and 2.5 kids, but i don't think he ever took it seriously.

part of him kind of wants the chance to be a better parent than his ever were, but he also worries that he'd just fuck his kids up like his parents did him. maybe he'd be unable to break the cycle (no matter how badly he wanted to) and be destined to become a helicopter parent -- trying his best to protect his child but ultimately smothering them.

to be honest though, i think his idea of love is so skewed towards obsession, that a kid would just get in the way. he wants to be the only person his s/o loves, and they will be the only person he loves in return, a baby is going to take that love away from him.

How badly do they want to reach their end goal? 

at one point, all corey wanted was to go to college and get out of his house, out of haddonfield. he wanted that more than anything else, and if he just worked hard enough, for just a little bit longer, he'd make it. if he were in a better position (more supportive family, better socio-economic status) his goal would be much easier to attain, but if he did have those benefits, would he feel so strongly about that goal?

i feel like even though college is his way out, corey requires and enjoys mental/intellectual stimulation enough that he would want to go to college anyway, even if things were better for him at home.

post-accident, he doesn't have a goal at all beyond surviving, and even then we see his commitment to that goal is pretty tenuous.

If someone asked them to explain their sexuality, how would they do so? 

ahh well if you read my hcs about corey's sexuality, you would already know. but that will not stop me repeating those hcs here.

corey doesn't really consciously label his sexuality, but if he was asked point blank i think he could probably connect himself with bisexuality, but he's way more of a euphemism person -- "swing both ways".

[maochira]

omg i just saw ur chris comforting the reader after a mental breakdown post! do u think u can do that again but with bigbro!karasu? thank uuu 🫶🤍🤍🤍

I've done two similar things with Karasu already (comfort after a bad day and anxiety attack comfort) but I can do this as well!

Requests open! - masterlist

Synopsis: Since Karasu went to Blue Lock, you started feeling lonely and now you even had a falling out with your friends, leaving you completely alone. Luckily, your brother returns just in time to comfort you.

Tags: gn!younger sibling!reader, slightly overprotective big brother!Karasu, comfort

Ever since Karasu left to go to Blue Lock, home started feeling empty. Your parents work a lot so you're alone most of the time. For a while, you were able to find distraction by keeping yourself busy or meeting up with friends. The latter thing just hasn't been possible lately.

Last week, your friend group had a massive falling out and you just can't help but feel like it's all your fault. Without anyone to talk to about it, it's been eating you up from the inside. Usually, you'd talk to your brother about things like this but even though he has his phone in Blue Lock back by now, he's busy most of the time and there's no way to properly tell him about what's on your mind.

Watching him play on the Blue Lock Eleven team was amazing and you were happy to see him again, but as soon as you were back home you started feeling awful because you just miss him being around. As much as he teases and bullies you all the time, he does it with love and that's exactly what you miss.

Since that day, you haven't gone to school because your mental health has been declining more and more and by now you're just lacking the energy to leave the house. It's not just because you miss Karasu, but also because your previous friends started contacting you again and put more guilt on you than you already felt. It just became too much.

A few minutes ago, you finally managed to find the strength to block them. It's something you should have done way earlier, but something in you had hopes that everything will go back to how it was before if you apologize enough - even for things that aren't your fault at all.

While you're crying on your bed you can hear the front door open. It's a bit too early for one of your parents to return from work, but you just shrug it off.

You're still lost in your thoughts, so you only realize your brother is back at home when he knocks at your door. You know the way his knocking sounds compared to your parents' very well.

"Nii-san?" You turn your head to the door and seconds later, Karasu opens it. You haven't called him Nii-san in a very long time. At some point, you just started calling him Tabi-nii or Tabito, but Nii-san feels more fitting right now. "You're back?"

Karasu doesn't answer, and instead he quickly shows concern and sits down next to you. "You were crying?" He grabs both of your shoulders to pull you closer to himself. "What's wrong?"

"I just missed you a lot..." You tell him half of the truth. "It's been lonely without you..."

Your big brother immediately pulls you into a tight hug. He doesn't speak yet, it always takes him a while to find the right words to comfort you. Instead, his arms only tighten around your body.

"I missed you a lot as well. But did you miss me so bad that it made you cry?" Karasu says while he realizes he's been hugging you a little too tight. "Come on, you're not that much of a sensitive crybaby." He lets out a little chuckle, hoping to cheer you up a bit. He always tries to leave teasing out when he comforts you, but he can't hold himself back most of the time. It's just his love language.

"It's not just that... Some stuff has happened with my friends and-"

Karasu quickly interrupts you as soon as you mention your (not anymore) friends. "Those 'friends' who I've always said are too mediocre to deserve being your friends? I don't wanna say I told you they're bad for you but... I mean, I told you they're bad for you."

"I'm sorry I just-" You stop your own sentence because you quickly notice you don't actually have anything else to say. You just feel bad for not listening to your brother's advice.

"Don't apologize for that," Karasu pulls away from the hug so he can look into your eyes, "Now tell me what those pieces of shit did so I can make them regret it."

Taglist (sign-up link): @starhrtz, @kaineedstherapy12, @zyuuuu, @yerinsshi, @luvcalico, @truegoist, @vanitasbrainrot, @deerangle3, @toruden, @keiidaydreams

[sharpegirl]

Content Warnings for THE GIRL IN QUESTION

Hi all,

ARC's are arriving in less than 48 hours, so I've posted the content warnings for THE GIRL IN QUESTION below behind the cut.

THE GIRL IN QUESTION is a contemporary thriller that concludes teen con-artist Nora O’Malley’s story which began in the novel THE GIRLS I’VE BEEN.

This is a sequel that does not stand-alone. Meaning you need to read the first book in order to understand the second. Nora has no time to explain backstory to anyone, she’s got a man to destroy.

THE GIRL IN QUESTION is about Nora O’Malley, the daughter of a con-artist who targets criminal men in a sweetheart con. When her mother fell for an abusive criminal mark instead of conning him, a pre-teen Nora engineered her escape with her sister, Lee, putting her mother and her crime-lord Step-Father in prison while she stayed hidden under a new identity all through high school. But now high school is over...and her Step-Father is out of prison. He knows her name. He knows her location. He knows what she looks like. And he knows who she cares about.

The GIRL IN QUESTION takes place a year after the first novel and covers several weeks over the summer after Nora, Iris and Wes graduate high school.

The novel is set in the Cascade mountain range on a backpacking trip. Nora, her girlfriend Iris, her ex and best friend Wes and Wes’s girlfriend Amanda find themselves in predicament when, on their trip, Amanda gets mistaken for Nora and kidnapped by Raymond—all because she was wearing Nora’s flannel.

Stranded in the forest with no weapons, dwindling gear, a one-eyed dog named Turbo and a group of men determined to kill her and everyone she loves, Nora finds herself facing a nightmare. She can’t run. She can’t hide. It’s kill or be killed. So it’s time to fight.

Content Warnings for THE GIRL IN QUESTION are behind the cut.

Violence & Abuse: violence related to surviving domestic violence, past and present, children and teens in life-threatening peril, threats to a child (past and present), surviving psychological & emotional abuse, surviving parental abuse (psychological, emotional and physical), disclosure of being a survivor of childhood sexual abuse to a teenaged peer, the aftermath of childhood sexual abuse and surviving childhood sexual abuse, drug abuse (prescription pills).

Assault: verbal threats of physical assault, physical assault, physical assault when victim is asleep, physical intimidation, hand to hand fighting, bullying, gunshot and stabbing wounds,, fire, references to a previous dismemberment, strangulation, kidnapping, eye gouging, booby traps with wooden spikes, wooden spear injuries, numerous foot injuries (shooting, stabbing, set on fire).

Death: murder, threats of murder, references to an off-screen character over-dosing on pills.

Misc: discussion of menstruation, discussion of reproductive health, choice and justice, references to living with chronic pain, references to menstrual spotting due to stress and endometriosis, mentions of drug addiction, mentions of endometriosis excision surgery. 

Animals: Turbo the one-eyed dog is an important character in THE GIRL IN QUESTION. Turbo is a rescue dog with only one eye because she had an infection when she arrived at the rescue Wes and Iris volunteer at. Turbo’s eye surgery is mentioned in the novel, but happens before the narrative starts.

Turbo is not harmed in the novel. Pets do not die in my books. People are another matter.

If you have read THE GIRL IN QUESTION and feel like I missed anything and you have the time, please send me an email at tess@tess-sharpe.com and let me know. Sometimes I miss stuff!

[angelthefirst1]

01x01 ♾️ 10x10

YEARS...

TOWL

First off, I loved episode one, and I hope you all enjoyed it too.

I very much believe the title is linked to Beth - The one who lives.

I mentioned in previous posts that we would be heading back to repeat season 1 of the walking dead. We got many callbacks in episode 1 of TOWL. Such as Rick stepping into Merle's role of being handcuffed because he is "difficult."

Like Merle, Rick has to chop his own hand off to escape.

The callbacks are quite detailed. If you remember back, Merle was horrible to T-dog, refusing to take any direction from him because of his skin colour. He almost kills T-dog and wants to become the leader of the group, which leads to Rick handcuffing him.

Whereas to contrast, Rick wants to escape the CRM to get back to Michonne, whom he loves.

Rick also doesn't desire power in the CRM at all and even says so to Okafor.

Rick, in season one, is also looking for Lori his wife.

Merle and Daryl (the brothers) are separated.

It's a beautiful rework of that time around the rooftop scene in Atlanta...

The exciting thing about all this is that Andrea was first introduced just prior to Merle (Daryl's brother) being handcuffed on that rooftop.

They are reversing and reworking season one and season 5 scenes combined (I'll get to the season 5 patterns soon), so Beth (a reworked Andrea) is close...

We even saw Rick's own version of a Brulent (burner) walker that leads to cauterization...

I talk about the cauterization theme at length here from DD1.

The cauterization theme is related to walking away from God, which is interesting with Rick specifically because Rick is "walking away" from or running away from the CRM.

The CRM logo is a representation of God.

The Borromean rings have been used in different contexts to indicate strength in unity. In particular, some have used the design to symbolize the Trinity.

The end is the beginning theme ♾️

This theme reveals a major clue to the story and what they are drawing from, and that is the Revelation or revealing of Jesus Christ.

Beth's revealing is symbolic of this...

The book of Revelation is known as a book about the end of all things but also the beginning of something new.

To remind you, not that you need it, this is a show about the end of the world, and the writers are heavily incorporating biblical end time events into the show.

Jesus describes one of his characteristics in the book of Revelation, he says:

‭‭Revelation 22:13

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

The beginning and the end theme, will eventually reveal Beth. 01x01 ♾️ 10x10 get well soon.

The symbolism around her character is used to link her symbolically to Christ, I've mentioned this many times before. As a reminder, some aspects of this are:

She dies wearing a cross.

She dies sacrificially (goes all in) to save Noah.

The bible says Noah walked with God, so God saved him from the biblical flood. In the cauterization post i linked above, i go into how 510 events when it rained and they hide in the barn (Ark) was a rework of the biblical flood.

Beth was also the only character given the symbolism of an "empty" or missing body/grave.

She was innocent and considered "good" as Daryl was trying to indicate at the "oh" moment (and yes, he was also saying he loves her 😉)

Jesus was also called good by his disciples. The real definition actually means morally perfect, so while back in Alone the writers were using the "good people theme" to indicate someone that hasn't become out-rightly evil in these evil times, with Beth, it was just one more way of linking her symbolically to Jesus as morally perfect.

Seeing what Rick has experienced with the CRM is a shadow of Beth.

Now let's talk about how season 5 Grady has been reworked.

While we are back in season 1, they are also showing us Rick's version of being at Grady.

Dawn is Thorne, and yes, we're rhyming names now it's becoming that obvious.

Rick (Beth) and Thorne (Dawn) play a game of Poker, and Rick goes all in... Thorne folds.

Thorne tells Rick she's great at poker, but she loses.

Dawn also liked to play poker... Poker is about holding the right cards, having the upper hand, and even bluffing your way to a win.

Remember the hostage trade at Grady? They focused a large amount of time on the numbers of cops to trade with Dawn.

Daryl says to Rick, "3s better than 2" talking about the 3 cops they have to trade back for Beth and Carol. 3 cops gives them the winning hand...

Now, in poker, that's a true statement. All you need to win is a better hand than your opponent.

Well...in fact Dawn and Beth were playing poker in that hallway at Grady.

Beth made the choice to go all in like Rick did. Dawn dies (folds)

It's a big risk to go all in, but the pay-off can be huge. Dawn got nothing in the end.

While Beth is the one who lives and survives a bullet to the forehead. This is actually confirmed in this episode twice, so read on.

A shadow of this is shown with Rick...

In the very next scene after the poker game where Thorne (Dawn) folds, we see Rick hold the bullet right to his forehead. It's not a coincidence...

In that defining moment, you'll make the right choice...

Beth made the right choice.

Beth won and it was lights out for Dawn before she even got to play... just like Thorne said...

Confirming the poker theme and bullet graze theme.

This combination is actually reinforced as it's mentioned in sequence twice in this episode.

Rick and Thorne both sign up to the CRM, and Okafor asks them to work secretly for him. Afterwards, Thorne talks with Rick, and Rick asks her if she gave Okafor the scar on his forehead (a shadow of Beth's scar)

It's then she admits to shooting Okafor in the head, but the bullet just grazed him, she missed. Rick then asks if she will shoot him, too...

Then, she stops and seemingly very randomly brings up the topic of playing poker. But it's not random at all.

It's a reworked reverse shadow of what happened at Grady.

Bullet graze to the head, missed didn't make the kill but it did leave a scar, poker and lights out for Thorne/Dawn. All while Rick (Beth) asks if she will shoot him too.

And all while Rick (Beth) is trapped in the CRM (Grady) away from the love of his life.

Thorne also gives us more hints that she is a new version of Dawn back at Grady. She thinks the system of the CRM is working fine and it doesn't need to change.

Rick disagrees as no one is free to leave.

Beth kept telling Dawn that she wasn't staying any longer than they made her. She wasn't free to leave either, and Dawn told her she shouldn't see it as a sentence. That out there, she would be dead.

This whole rework also gives us insight into Beth's mindset. Just as Rick was trying to escape to get to someone he loves, so was Beth trying to get back to Daryl.

The A's and B's - a repeat of Grady only taking in the ones who they thought were weak. In Beth's case, they got it wrong, she thought for herself, which classified her a an A.

They thought she was a B but she was an A

The man i was with, is he here?

They thought Daryl was an A and same with Noah's Dad so they left them out in the world to die.

Okafor, Thorne and Rick are a reworked version of Beth, Dawn and Noah.

The repeats in this story should give hope that Beth survived that bullet and just like the end of this episode with Rick and Michonne, the story will eventually lead to two people who love each other reuniting. One of whom thought the other died but could never find the body...

[toastess-with-the-mostess]

Voltron: The Series

Last stop folks! One I'm sure you already know well This was my introduction into Voltron, fell in love with it, led me to its predecessors, then had a rocky relationship with it, and still do Thanks for joining me so far! I love Voltrons history because there's so much to be inspired from Dotu/VV - V3D - VF - VLD (here)

Word vomit under the cut <3

Oh boy 2016, nothing can go wrong here Frankly this is the better looking Voltron out of all of them, I'm glad to see what 2D and 3D can really do together since VF had a rocky time with that itself. Like I said in the Dotu/VV post, this show is a hard reboot, at most it takes the names and basic legend of the original show and just runs with it. Though it does take inspiration from the previous shows, again with Pidge being a genius, the lions being mystical, and this time I'm fairly sure the bayards were directly inspired from the voltcoms from VF That's the main reason why I don't find it fair to compare Voltron Legendary Defender (VLD) to the other Voltrons because it's not the same story at all, it's its own thing and is pretty well isolated. It has major changes to the story beats, like Lotor not automatically being a villain, the pilots aren't trained soldiers and instead cadets themselves, for a while the team aren't even friends, Allura's planet is renamed (to be fair it's back to the original anime name) and also destroyed, and Pidge is a girl now, which I don't mind but from what I've learned its a joke between older fans since many of them thought dotu Pidge was a girl at first due to his headband. The gist of VLD is vaguely similar to the rest of them, a team of five lands on Altea (Arus) and discovers Voltron which is then used to defend the universe. Like I mentioned though, the team isn't made up of soldiers, most of them are cadets with only one (1) seasoned soldier on the team who has been missing for years until the group found him. They have an Indiana Jones moment and find blue lion hidden away on Earth which abducts the entire team to Arus, a planet unrelated to Altea, where the castle of lions sits locked up. The rest of the show is them learning to work together and the best way to handle dangerous situations when more than just easily ignored lives are on the line. In total, it had 8 seasons in 2 years (yikes), the most of the shows (probably ran too long in retrospect), spawned 3 volumes of comics (15 in total), and brought the return of the toy line. This iteration brought in the most viewers because of the original fans who were still kicking, the animation, the story (in the beginning), and it was on Netflix which many people had at that point so it was easily accessible. It also spawned an incredibly large fandom which could be amazing at some points and down right radioactive at others. Either way though, it created avenues for merchandise, podcasts, fan interactions, and furthering the legacy of Voltron itself! As of this post, there's information slowly coming out about a live action movie for Voltron (probably not VLD related, that ship has sailed lads) which has many fans excited for what's to come

[namesnamesandmorenames]

Okay, so since my last post I have decided to make a few previously select or multi-select properties into separate database relations properties– I've also completed separated my fanfiction and old library databases and I am letting myself put fan art banners and more fun icons on some pages lol. One of these projects– you'll be able to see which because I haven't finished it– is going to be incredibly time consuming 😞. Again, this is starting as a speech to text voice note so it's going to get really conversational and probably have typos even though I'm going to edit it later. So sorry about that. I already typed it out once I can't.

Short spiel– I'm a library science grad student who is using notion to create a person fanfiction database. It's for fun but it's kinda interesting how my classes impacted what I do with it so I decided to make a post or two. I'll do a line brake now so you don't have to read more if you're not interested 🙂

Okay so the first section I consider a like Retrieval Information section– It answers questions like have I read this? Where can I find it? Who wrote it? Is there a podfic? Who recorded it? What stage in the writing process is it (One Shot, Multi Chapters, Work In Progress, Abandoned)? Was it written for a challenge/ is it in a collection (excluding personal favorite collections which there are so many of on ao3 I swear- pet peeve but I get it I was once one of those people, now I have a database that I've sunk too much time into lol)

The sorting section is actually automatically filled out based on the Creator information, I explained my tbr sorting is based on favorite, prolific, or new to the fandom authors so it's easiest to trust pull that information from the Creator record in a roll-up property because then I can move everything in a group if I miss something at the end of the week when I'm adding things.

Story info is pretty self-explanatory in my opinion, I pulled all of it from ao3 though I will fudge the information if I read a fic on Tumblr that isn't cross-posted. The pages it's not really useful per se. Just something that I think is interesting. It's also based on the PDF versions that you can download on ao3 and even then not really because I just averaged out the pages on one fic and have been dividing page numbers by that number for ages lol. Timeline I mentioned in my previous post. It's all based on 911 because I am currently hyperfixated on it to a degree that is genuinely… not great.

Authorized Tags… I'm still working on this. This is the time consuming project. I decided to make the multi-select property Tags– which has an insane amount of tags in it, which are all kind of jumbled because I was using different language for all of them like for instance “Evan Buckley is a Teacher” and “Bartender Buck” are both tags in that property but also it's just in that section so I can't even see everything that's in there and at this point there's over like 200+ tags that I can't really search very well and I can't really browse fics in the tags easily so it limits use in that way. Also, there's no real organization so everything that could be tagged wasn't there- also creators all use tags in very different ways so a lot of that was me tagging fic as I read them because this is a personal database, it's just what I want to do. But basically Authorized Tags is *loosely* based off of Authorized Heading from my cataloging course lol. Basically I've cleaned up the language and created more of a type and tier organization (“Evan Buckley is a Teacher” and “Bartender Buck” are now “Teacher! Buck” and “Bartender! Buck” respectfully and are specific character tags under the broad character tag of “Not a Firefighter! Evan Buckley”) so I'll be able to find things easier… when I finished retagging the like 3000 records that I've been tagging multi select up until now 😭. This is also giving me the chance to pull my OOC/Bashing tag into a little alien 👽 check box- like I said the tags are mine some creators tag way more extensively than me, others imo under tag– bashing isn't a DNF for me and I just ignore it when fix are tagged “Specific Character! Bashing” because sometimes people will tag that when it's just canon accurate behavior in my opinion? And again actual bashing doesn't bother me *most of the time* but it is one of the things that I want to know about effect on first glance if I'm going to reread.

Series was a single select property up until my last post actually… it was much easier to convert because unlike tags not every fic is in a series lol. But also I am going to go back and see if there were any fics that aren't in what I would consider a series but are how some creators use series like a place where they collect their one shots or a bunch of fic that they wrote with a single trope or even personal entries to fandom challenges, I also decided to use this database to track works that were inspired by other works if it's a very direct correlation– like if there's a sequel or one shot in the same world written by another Creator. The previous/next relations direct to other related works within the database, if Fic 1 is previous to Fic 2, Fic 2 is next to Fic 1. You'll be surprised how long it took me to add these fields or you'll think it's overkill– it's both. Part of the reason that I really needed these is because both the tags and the series properties were select properties. I could tag a fic as a sequel fic but that didn't directly connect me to its predecessor, I can see that'll work as part of a series but I would still have to leave the record to then go and look to see what else is in that series. It's kind of a non-issue. Obviously all of this is non-issues. This is way too in-depth for what it is. But it's going to be even more of a non-issue now that Series is a separate database but I'll probably still keep it for conveniences sake because if nothing else it is convenient.

Housekeeping– when did I start and when did I finish the fic? Was it a favorite? Was there a quote that I took note of while reading it?

Meta-Metadata (I had that labeled as just metadata for an embarrassingly long time considering literally the entire record is metadata…) I used to have a record created property but it broke somehow. I don't know I want it back. I'm going to try at some point. I just haven't gotten around to it. It's not like a useful thing. It's just interesting to see how long after a record is created I back get around to reading it you know? But the two check boxes there are formulas attached to the read status. The first one includes up-to-date works as read And the second one only includes read read works as read– I like keeping up to date with a few authors so if they have work in progress work that I am keeping up to date with, I want it included in their tally on their record. So I have two separate roll-ups for read lol.

You'll see on the completed record that the only thing that I have written in the bottom part is reread dates. I don't know, I've never felt the need to take notes outside of the records? Or if I do, it's very rarely. I haven't really figured out a way to record reread dates in a way that doesn't seem clunky to me so I just put it there.

But yeah as you can see way too extensive lol a lot of these properties won't apply to every fic and are therefore hidden when empty (a few are always hidden in the collapsed view (Next/Previous notably) because if I'm looking for that information I'll look for it, you know?)

So here is a completed record of one of my favorite fics!

As you can see, a few things have been collapsed the labeling is always hidden because I don't really need it it's just so it's not a wall of properties on the back end, but you can also easily find the information that's important in my opinion?

Anyway I'm tagging @percyjackson-winchester because they asked me too if you have questions or want me to make a follow up post about the Series of Creator Databases (of the Tags Database when I finish it lol) let me know 😅

[tj99er]

Can I please see some more of your OC?

Now that my PC has recovered, here is all the art I've gotten of my squirrelboi, Dust. (unless I've missed something)

First the reference image, showcasing the model that @/olivercanticle revised for me (based on a much more simple model I made in Vroid)

Next, with a small story attached; my friend @/maplejava was at one point doing emergency commissions, I pitched in on Ko-fi, but told him that there wasn't anything in particular I wanted.

MY DUDE DECIDED HE WAS DOING SOMETHING ANYWAY AND SURPRISED ME WITH THIS WONDERFULLY STUPID IMAGE. (Context: I'm a sex-repulsed Asexual)

But that's not where maple's surprises would end, because he has also been working on a VRChat map that's kind of meant to be a hub or sorts for our friend group.

So while making that map, he adds in a Soda machine and decides, "you know what? I'm just going to put TJ's Character on there, imitating the boxart of the PS1 classic Pepsiman"

you know AS ANY PERSON WOULD THINK TO DO.

On the more tame side of things, as mentioned in that previous post, I've commissioned @/lenoxmst-blog to draw him a couple times (fun fact: He came up with the idea of having the rim of his goggles reference back to the Godot mask that Henry, my Yoshi character has always had)

And then, inspired by my Lobotomy Corporation playthrough, I asked Lenox for another piece where he's barely holding it together. (This game is amazing and also I have SO much fun editing this image)

At around the same time I asked lenox for the first image, I also commissioned @/cookiestar456

My current profile pic was done by the wonderful @/sethwindam

My friend Fuzz contacted one of his artist friends to gift me this art

When I started doing a mild amount of programming work for ChairGTables at lame dimension, this guy was made:

And finally, inspired by my Mario Kart streams, @/plushievik and @kahilia made fan art of Dust in cute chibi animal form

As a bonus for scrolling through all this art, here's a couple of my favorite screenshots I have gotten while using VSeeFace, the software that tracks my face for my stream

As you might be able to tell, I really like my dumb little squirrel fella. And I've not even talked about the lore I gave him (which is largely based around a real experience that happened to me in a gaming session)