#bc i went to the world market & got some things

[orcelito]

Stuck at work. Wanting to bite things. Not in a hungry or frustrated way though. I just am cognizant of my sharp canines and they make me want to Pierce things.

[rassicas]

hi guys! im back. i went tokyo for a few days. got back at 7 this morning after taking an overnight 7 hour bus ride.... that i did not sleep on bc i cant sleep in moving vehicles. this will be something closer to a proper blog post i guess. splatoon related convention? experience below

i've kept my mouth shut about my plans to go because its not as well known on the english side of the fanbase and i didnt wanna make people too jealous sorry LOL , but i went to splaket 22! it's an unofficial, splatoon-only doujinshi market/artists alley. this was my first convention-sort-of event ive been to since i was... in high school. i also dont really get to meet many other hardcore splatoon fans irl. i was nervous about it because i don't know a whole lot of people on the JP side nor do i have a lot of confidence in my japanese speaking/listening, but in the end it was SUPER fun. i wish i couldve talked a bit more to the artists i did encounter to comment on what i liked about their works but. Skill Issue very few non-japanese people at this event of course but one of the only english speakers i saw i called out to bc they were wearing a shirt with this exact image printed on it no video and no photos outside of designated areas were allowed so i got like. zero pics of my own. but there was a lot of cosplayers i saw! oh and here's the Loot Haul. a few doujin, a clear file, stickers, microfiber cloth and a keychain. im surprised at how little i got, i think i shouldve gone a bit crazier with it

the one with Tao Blu and oonie in the top left (by sachikazerick) I came across by chance and bought because it was cute, featured splatband characters, and also because it all in some familiar inkling language (the last point of which i told the artist as i was buying) when i finally got home and saw the back credits...

SMALL FUCKIN WORLD LOL (i tweeted at the artist afterwards to let him know i came by the table and to thank him for using me and my friend's inkling language fonts!) though truly, i think ardnin deserved the credit more rather than me since he made most of those fonts! ah well, still cool to see more and more fan works using deciphered inkling language. top middle book is a story with some salmonid characters that i havent read yet but im looking forward to it, the art is lovely. top right one was the first thing i bought. the artist is rk_splaworks, whose art i love, and we've been mutuals for a few years and have talked a bit here and there! i was so fucking nervous to meet them in person since my japanese sucks LMAO but they were happy to meet me too and we got a selfie together yippy <3 also havent read their doujin Yet since ill have to rub all my brain cells together and huddle over the dictionary, but i want their oc lore

ok that's all i'll say, next splaket is...june 22. very soon....im already thinking ill. go again. yknow. while im still in japan and all that. i guess ill have to study harder on my jp in the meantime teehee ...i doubt it, but in the off chance anyone following me is going to the next splaket in june lemme know!

[stevieharringtonwifeguy]

yknow we do a lot of like stevie realising she's transfem bc of a dare or like robin telling her about queer stuff and having a 'you can do that?' moment, but now im thinking of stevie who figures it out entirely on her own and doesn't know how to tell anyone. like she doesn't fully have the words and even with robin it's like. one thing to be gay but gender stuff is a whole other level and she has no idea where she stands on that

but like, stevie who used to play with his mothers makeup as a child, whose parents would laugh at his antics until he got too old to be so childish, time to act like a Real Boy. and every time he's supposed to act like One Of The Boys he thinks of how it felt when his mom would do his hair for him and comment on how alike they looked, and how much better that felt, and he knows that isn't normal, and he has to be normal

but after the upside down that really seems to matter less. nothings fucking normal anymore, why should steve be? so she starts branching out a little. breaks into her mothers closet again, tries on all the clothes she left behind when she went on her latest trip. slowly amasses a decent collection of makeup by going to several different stores over the course of months with the excuse of 'oh my mom/girlfriend sent me to pick up x'. she doesn't do the Whole Deal often, in case nancy comes over or later in case the kids suddenly ask her to drive them somewhere. doesn't do anything that can't be removed in like three seconds. and she's definitely never telling anyone about this. she doesn't know anyone who would understand.

after starcourt, she wonders about telling robin sometimes. like sure, stevie doesn't like men but she's still like. some kind of queer. robins the only other queer person she knows (and yeah, robin turning her down bc she was only into girls did sort of hurt, but it wasn't robins fault bc she didn't know, and also it turned out stevie just didn't understand what actual friendship felt like so it was for the best anyway), so if she can't tell robin who can she tell?

but something always stops her. robins technically never done anything that makes stevie think she'd be mean about it, but there's something like imposter syndrome keeping her mouth closed. like she's not the right kind of queer. like robins being queer the good and honest way and stevies just being some kind of freak. and yeah, she knows it's dumb to think like that and robin would call her a dingus if she said it out loud, but it sits pretty heavy in her heart

so it's not until after vecna, when stevies on the eddie shift in the hospital and eddie says, while high on possibly every drug in the world, 'man i spent all that time trying to grow my tits and bats ate an entire boob in under five minutes' and stevie goes ??? what???? and eddie, still too high to self-censor, makes some comment like yeah they weren't huge but that black market estrogen i got was finally working its magic, definitely had like an a-cup. rest in peace. and stevies like why were you growing boobs?? 'bc girls are supposed to have boobs, man, keep up'

and eddie passes out again like five seconds later, but stevie just sits there watching her snore with her heart about to beat out of her chest because. holy shit. she's not the only one. eddie might understand, might be able to help her, if she was able to grow her own boobs. stevie would love to grow her own boobs. she'd stuffed some socks down a bra once and they looked lumpy as hell but even just the suggestion of a bust had almost brought her to tears.

and suddenly, looking at the sleeping form of the first person stevie has ever met that she's ever had this so intrinsic thing in common with, everything doesn't seem so scary

[monosanimegenericzone]

Hunter x Hunter: Conspiracy theory

this is a big leap and a reach and feeds my narrative satisfaction.

and it involves HEAVY troupe copium and apologist things of that nature.

you've been warned. proceed with a grain of salt.

(also gonna. put it under a break bcs this got long as hell XD)

I think the troupe was not solely responsible for the kurtan massacre and are on the Black Whale 1 to show the one responsible that they aren't going to continue to protect his clean record.

allow me to explain, starting with yorknew.

so i have had this theory knocking around in my head that the yorknew auction was meant to be a sort of finale or huge thing. because that was a big deal right, that's the world mafia they're pissing off.

AND it was weird bcs chrollo wanted everything at the auction. the troupe calls him out on that. and since we all know chrollo is a theatrical bastard, there is a meaning behind everything so this is no different.

so why does he want to declare war on the world mafia.

here's what we know.

meteor city was selling their own people to the mafia for a guarantee of safety from the black market. we don't know if these people went willingly or not but it was why the mafia didn't want to continue to pursue the troupe. the connection between meteor city and the world mafia was very important.

we know a few things changed between the troupe flashback and present day.

a) the troupe gained a reputation. until yorknew, apparently no one knew they were from meteor city.

b) the elders learned how to use nen. at the very least, we know of one counteractive nen ability that was used to protect the city's citizens from unfair indictment. there were probably more but we dont know for sure.

c) the mafia had gotten really comfortable with their connection with meteor city, now relying more on the city than the city relied on it.

chrollo was the one who most likely set up this relationship. it was his promise to set up the city as a hub for criminals so that he could personally witness and sift through the absolute scum of the earth to find sarasa's killers.

so based on all of this:

Yorknew City was meant to be the start of chrollo's grand finale to tear down the criminal infrastructure in meteor city.

but, things happened. and he got his ass beat.

POINT IS: Chrollo organizes his attacks with purpose.

.... SO WHY THE FUCK IS THIS DUMBASS TRYING TO ATTACK THE KAKIN FUCKING EMPIRE.

"attack" being an exaggeration but cmon. stealing from is the same thing as coming over and spitting in their food.

here's where the conspiracy theory comes in.

what if the kurta massacre wasn't exclusively done the troupe.

yes this is the part with the troupe apologist bullshit but hear me out. i have something interesting to share.

so at this point we know the troupe doesn't do petty theft anymore. this isn't just a "hey the kakin empire is rich. lets rob them :D" job. chrollo on a mission.

i saw this on twitter and a single post led down this downward spiral. (images are linked to the post)

so these pages stood out to me. the troupe never starts fights? that sounds stupid. sound goofy even.

but it's true.

or, phrased correctly, the troupe doesn't start fights they don't know how to finish. since chrollo is the head, they all function as his limbs, meaning they share his mentality when approaching combat: he will not take fights he can't guarantee he will win.

that being said, as shown in the pages above, they will ALWAYS pick up the gauntlet. if someone picks a fight with THEM, the entire gang will spin the block. aint no one surviving.

in the succession war arc, they were framed for the murder of a char-r member because luini was a toxic fan.

so here's the hypothetical: what if the troupe was framed for the kurta massacre?

we know their hands aren't clean. uvo, chrollo, phinks and pakunoda all recall the killing, so that's evidence they were there for it.

here's some things I don't understand about the event though.

a) the kurta were supposedly super well hidden, to the point that when kurapika was shown in vol 0/the phantom rouge, there were tribe traditions that forbade anyone that couldn't hide their eyes properly from going outside of the village. this was like. i think 1 year or so before the massacre.

b) when exactly did the eyes become relevant to body part collection? if it is believed that the troupe attacked the clan for the money that the eyes sell for, that means there must have been some already on the market. we dont get confirmation of this

c) how was a process for preserving magic eyes conceived at this time? im flabbergasted.

leaning mostly on point b, the kurta clan must have had previous victims of their scarlet eyed members getting got. which leads to point a, heightened protection of the kurtans with scarlet eyes.

but, as is anything in the hxh world, if there is something rare, there will always be a market for it.

now keep in mind what i said before: the troupe never picks up fights unless they know they can win and unless there's an ulterior motive. money doesn't matter to them, neither does infamy. at this point they're grade A bounties so yeah, neither of those things mean jack shit.

so i raise the idea that was in that twitter post: what if someone framed the spiders for the massacre and they took it in stride. that's free street cred, of course they claim ownership.

but let's go back and analyze, because who in their right mind would pick these randoms.

the kakin empire would. or someone associated with a high seat of power that can't afford to be tainted with something like genocide.

let's look at fourth prince tserreidnich.

im not saying he specifically pointed the finger at the spiders, but he was most likely the benefactor that wanted the scarlet eyes in the first place. he would stop at no means and he lets his people handle the dirty work.

he even has a damn head that is probably also kurtan.

so let's go out on a limb and say that tserreidnich ordered a party of mercenaries to track down the kurta clan so he could expand his collection. but, obviously, the group can't take the blame, so they pin it on the troupe or claim to be the troupe.

and because the troupe was wronged all of those years ago, chrollo is now aiming a full frontal assault against the kakin empire. hisoka is just a side quest. chrollo *remembers* how he was wronged.

so to recap. here's how the theory says the story goes.

the phantom troupe is in lukso province for whatever reason. probably to target the large movement of body part collectors to the region or something completely unrelated.

the 4th prince's team moves into the kurta village and starts taking the eyes. the kurtans successfully fight back and demand to know who they are. they answer, "we're the spiders"

and the kurtans, now hell bent on revenge for their fallen, seek out the troupe and pick a fight. and the troupe being the troupe, pick up the gauntlet no questions asked.

(alt. the kurtans seek out a powerful ally in the troupe to fight back against what we assume are trained human hunters and when they fail, beg to be killed as well)

chrollo at the time doesn't question the interaction. it was a gang of violent vagabonds trying to right a wrong that the troupe didn't even participate in.

it bothers him, just a little bit, that someone would try to frame the troupe for an atrocity that they didn't do. sure, it fit their narrative and added to their reputation, but it bothers him that someone out there had used their name.

but come yorknew, he's confronted with a surviving kurta. and the problem resurfaces.

he has his hands full trying to reroute the course of the yorknew heist and has to cut a lot of his plans short. he still completed his goal and started the process of severing ties between the mafia and meteor city.

but now the kurta are a problem in his life again and once he gets that damn chain out of his chest, he has two things to focus on:

a) getting away from hisoka to gather abilities

b) figuring out how to deal with kurapika

he remembers the kurta and is totally okay with shouldering the blame for their elimination. but that means that he's clearing the name of someone else for free.

and he doesn't do shit for free.

since he doesn't have to worry about meteor city immediately (the 10 dons are dead and the world mafia is in shambles), he can move onto bigger fish.

right now, his goal is to figure out the truth behind the kurtan massacre. and his search leads him to 4th prince tserriednich. a man in possession of eyes that the troupe didn't sell and way more than the 36 total that *should* be on the market.

THAT is why chrollo is picking a fight with the kakin empire. THAT is why he is on the black whale one. he's here to settle a 7 year old score, and if he can take hisoka down at the same time? good for him.

anyway thats my crazy conspiracy theory. there are some wrinkles in here that may be defied by canon reveals later in the story.

but damn would this make sense for why chrollo is on that damn boat. bcs i know he isn't stupid enough to send the ENTIRE TROUPE on a suicide mission just for hisoka.

so unless we get a reveal of something else substantial, this is what i'm working with.

[redstonedust]

wait im confused what is this kerilson lore you mentioned im apprently missing out on? Who/what is kerilson??

ok i'm gonna recap literally everything i can remember about kerilson because i'm not sure how much context you have. SO. INCOMING INFODUMP:

if you've been following the rest of hermitcraft season 9 you'd know that the majority of the active hermits went through the rift and got trapped on empires smp for a month. one of the only hermits left behind was xb, and he handled this... interestingly (badly)

so after showing footage of the hermits going through the rift via a security camera he apparently has set up in grians base, and then trying to claim the entire shopping district as his property (off to a good start) he opens his next episode proudly declaring that he's actually NOT alone, he has a friend, and that friend knows how to open the rift again!

enter kerilson:

i should clarify that kerilson is, first and foremost, a reference to the movie castaway. like. in that movie the protagonist is stuck on an island with nobody to talk to but a volleyball he's named wilson. so theres already precedent for kerilson being just xb going kind of stir crazy without his friends (especially keralis).

so according to xb, kerilson demands a diamond throne (which also includes concrete slabs, the first sign that something weird is going on) and then they reopen the rift. except the rift sends xb to previous hermitcraft seasons instead of empires, where kerilson is distracted by wanting to look at past keralis builds instead of helping xb find his friends. eventually xb DOES end up on empires, but its season 1, and he's completely alone.

he wanders through the server, finds the ocean, spends several days at sea, gets picked up by a flying kerilson themed boat, the scenery warps back into his base, he gets back into bed, and then is woken up by beef, who seems disturbed by the fact xb is even IN bed. bc, y'know, hermitcraft, sleep should be instant.

he concludes the whole thing was a dream, tho that doesnt explain how he's able to accurately dream of empires s1, but gem's empires lore establishes sleep based world hopping so...... put a pin in that.

anyways two episodes later kerilson can be spotted watching xb in the background of his base, but isnt acknoweldged. xb continues to be Totally Normal about his missing friends by building a giant keralis statue, except every time he looks back at it its head is replaced with kerilsons head. so he blows it up.

several months pass with v few kerilson hints, until xb starts teasing a makeship plushie of him and kerilson. in this weirdest way possible. ie. while building his base he mentions he's started hearing noises, and a low joepacity kerilson flashes on screen with scrambled keralis dialog in the background. (side note: xb heard similarly scrambled keralis dialog when keralis was coming back through the rift. unclear if this is related.)

aaand bringing it to now, xb gets a book inviting him to a TCG match, which turns out to be against kerilson. who is apparently real and able to hold TCG matches. except during the animation of the match kerilson never moves and keralis is shown to be helping him behind the scenes, implying kerilson was just an armor stand all along-- except for, you know, the whole established dream demon aspect.

and now he's a marketable plushie! :D

so yeah TLDR: he's an armor stand who has been simultaniously implied to be a figment of xb's imagination, a regular armor stand xb thinks is alive, a regular armor stand controlled by keralis, some kind of fragment of keralis, and an independent, dream controlling being. and also keralis has little to no involvement in any of these episodes.

and as a fun side note, this isnt the first time we've seen some kind of logic defying facsimile of keralis appear in somebody elses episode. when tango went to space to try and stop the moon crashing in season 8, he ran into keralis, who stated he'd been there for months, even tho this is not true in keralis' episodes.

both of these are also scenarios where the enviroment is implied to not be real (a dream / a simulation) and the keralis-a-like appears to help them as they try to leave the server. coincidence? absolutely. but i love to make lore out of nothing!

[olderthannetfic]

I would never defend them - at least not the ones who actually harass people - but I do wonder if there's some antis out there who genuinely come from good intentions.

Super serious and genuinely shameful confession: I'm an ex-radfem. I went into those circles in the first place bc I liked some of Dworkin's works. And while I obviously do not recommend anyone ever get into radical feminism, I will say this: If haven’t been down that very specific rabbit hole of ideology yourself - especially in online settings - you cannot even begin to imagine how fucking INSANELY pervasive the ideas are. Even if you've been a victim of radfem hate, if you haven't been a radfem yourself, I'm truly inclined to think you have no idea what those spaces are actually like. Sorta like how if you've been a victim of fundie hate, that is awful and it fucking sucks, but if you haven't been raised fundie yourself, you really don't know what it's like to be IN those circles, just a VICTIM of those circles.

I hate to throw around words like “hivemind” or “groupthink” but it is that. I went into radfem spaces thinking that I was above believing certain things that they believed but I clearly wasnt, it is so fucking toxic and that’s why i’ll never believe that “TIRF” (trans inclusionary radfem - something I tried and failed to be) can be a real thing. And then these same people have the audacity to call trans rights a cult, but you know, it's whatever.

Obviously terfs are more serious in the "real world" than antis are, but there are some parallels in the way that both groups feel about kink/porn discourse. (No, I'm not saying that antis "believe TERF ideology" or anything, but I do think in the specific context of sex stuff, there ARE alot of parallels.)

I am not defending radfems either, but I will say that I got into it because I was genuinely worried about things such as: PH and how they just steal content from sex workers, the abuse going on in the sex work industry, the phenomenon of young girls who are waiting to turn 18 so they can start an OF account, romance novels that were not marketed as dark but should've been considering they straight up romanticized abuse and rape.

I really do think that most antis are of a similar mindset -- people, typically young traumatized people (not trying to pull the neurodivergent minor card, it's just that statistically speaking, that label CAN describe most antis) who are truly worried that, like, idk, some young girl is gonna watch Twilight or read Reylo fic and think that an overly possessive bf is #goals. Again, I'm NOT trying to defend this ideology or line of thinking at all, I'm just saying that i DO think most of them really don't realize the harm that they're doing, and actually think they're doing good.

I actually kinda feel bad for them, but like my earlier comparisons, I feel bad for them in the same way I feel bad for fundies or evangelicals. I feel bad that they hold such an awful ideology while thinking they're doing good things, but I stop feeling bad once they start ACTUALLY hurting people and I'll always feel worse for the people who they harass and harm.

And like I'd never want to be a radfem again and I hate that I was one once but, between myself and your ~10k (ballpark estimate lol) followers, I think that my time spend in that belief system gave me some really good insight to cult mindsets, which was something I didn't understand before or have much sympathy towards, and I've emerged with a lot of empathy for people who ARE stuck in bad ideologies. I could've been born into a hate group. I could've been preyed on by alt-right people and sucked in that way. Instead, it was reading radblr during quarantine that got me. Before I fell into it, I just mindlessly hated everyone in that group, and now I just feel sorry for them (still without justifying any of their actions).

It's honestly a really, really, complicated thing to try to grapple with. Anyone, yes including you reading this, can be brainwashed into hate. The second you think you're too good for that, you've lost.

This was more of a vent than a discourse ask. I guess my tl;dr is: I hate antis, terfs, fundamentalists, etc, as much as the next guy, but I also recognize that some of those people truly truly do think they're on the right side of history, and some of those people have been sucked into an ideology they never would've believed otherwise if not for xyz factors. While hate groups will never deserve pity, there are some vulnerable people in hate groups who for some reason believe they're doing good, and I wish I could help all of those people.

--

Yeah, I assume many antis are perfectly sincere in their desire to protect people. They're just wrong about what will work.

[newnlovesjennie]

one piece au where literally nothing went wrong everyone is alive and happy hc's

nami

belle mere is still alive obvi

the attack on her island was less of an attack and more of like a alliance? like the fishman pirates pulled up and were like hey we need a hideout can we pls use ur island. and they were like yeah offer us protection and in turn u can use our island! no violence no blood nothing!!

in this au fisher tiger is still alive and the fishman pirates are still what he envisioned before his death, so he’s the captain, not arlong

speaking of arlong he’s like hella toned down. he got the jinbei affect in the sense that koala changed him and showed him humans aren’t all bad. yeah sure he’s more radical and unhinged than the other pirates but he’s just like the weird conservative uncle you tolerate at thanksgiving not a real threat

hachi and nami bonding!!!

nami never develops an obsession with money, she gets to put her full effort into map making and exploring that talent

she makes maps for the fishman pirates completely out of her own free will

she joins the movement for fishman human equality woohoo!!!

yeah in this au that movement actually gets taken seriously instead of played off and the fishmen actually make progress in equality 

koala visits sometimes! koala and nami bonding time!!!

law

doflamingo is toned down like 1000% in this au he’s not a family killer in this one he’s just odd

like seriously idk how the logistics would work but maybe somehow after the whole “doffys family becomes human” thing the humans don’t persecute him? so in turn he just kinda is pretentious and misses being rich instead of holding a particular grudge against humanity?

either way he’s also just the weird conservative uncle you see at thanksgiving 

corazon is number one dad ever did he offer law henny for his 8th birthday yes does he know how to do laundry or cook not at all but he is trying his best!

LAW BABY FIVE AND BUFFALO AS COUSINS. PLEASE!!!! dellinger too maybe idk if he’s a kid or not tho

the executives like trebol diamante whatever the fuck also aren’t as evil either they just tryna do their own thing yk just black market deal in peace but no unnecessary killing 

donquixote family stays pirates instead of going and trying to take a whole kingdom (took a shit ton of convincing for doffy to accept that)

the whole pirate warlord thing gives doffy enough prestige he don’t need to be a king necessarily 

law eats the op op fruit, doffy tries to get him to make him immortal, corazon slaps him, doffy changes his mind

(i am taking so many liberties in this au omg)

zoro

kuina didn’t fucking fall down a flight of stairs!! yippee!!!

their whole competition abt who will be the greatest swordsman is still on

they venture outside the dojo and become pirates

both bounty hunters maybe

kuina is so so gay

hear me out…. kuina x tashigi? LET ME COOK

yeah zoros just there

they find their way to mihawks island without the whole kuma blasting zoro to a random island thing

they beg mihawk to train them but he’s like wtf get out of my house but they show potential and he’s like ok fine ill train y’all 

persona is also there bc i said so FUCK MORIA ALL MY HOMIES HATE MORIA she left him and somehow ended up with mihawk he also let her stay for some reason (he needs to stop adopting kids)

hear me out…. perona x kuina? or at the very least they become besties

once again zoro is just there

robin

olvia and saul are still alive

all of her island is still alive, don’t ask why the world government is ok with that they just are shhhh shhhhh 

robin grows up an archeologist but decides she needs to find the poneglyphs and discover the truth of the world

so she becomes a pirate and joins baroque works, led by crocodile

he respects her (WHAT) doesn’t try to kill her (WHAT) and they actually have a fun friendship a friendly lil boss secretary relationship its adorable

she helps crocodile get with doffy because god knows he couldn’t do it himself

ok if this is how this au is going robins gotta be besties with bon clay come on. mr three hello?? 

[savrenim]

whos ur mdzs blorbo (if u say anyone but jiang cheng youre wrong /JOKE)

not to be an Extremely Basic Bitch but Wei Wuxian. in my defense gotta LOVE me any character who is doing basic physics research and you cannot tell me that the development of demonic cultivation is not basic physics research in any given story I am going to be most obsessed with the character who is closest to doing theoretical physics in that setting bc most often nobody gives a fuck about the physics of their world in the main story even!! though!! it!! would!! be!! really!! cool!! magic!! physics!! that!! I!! want!! to!! know!! about!! and yes I understand the author set out to tell a story not to do fundamental physics but the physics of it will haunt me. I can and will kill on the hill that Wei Wuxian does magic physics and he does it Really Fucking Well and that is the thing I care most about in the world

but also

I am generally Bad At Cooking. I got better at cooking towards the end of grad school! but at the beginning of grad school I was actually cooking all my own food for the first time and was Bad At It and what's worse is that I was so tight on time that I'd almost always bulk cook for the whole week which meant that if I fucked up a recipe I had to eat it for lunch and dinner for like six days straight

until I discovered. the single best cooking hack. in the world.

you see, I like spicy. and I'm a vegetarian have been for forever and vegetarian bulk meals are like. "pasta and vegetables" "beans and rice and vegetables" etc etc. which and it turns out. that if you fuck up trying to make something. without altering the texture and having to redo anything bc it's totally possible to do it at the very end you can just dump an ungodly amount of red pepper flakes and/or cayenne pepper powder in and now it does not taste Bad, it simply tastes Spicy, and for me, that tastes Good

I proceeded to use this trick with everything. including when my coffee beans got really old and stale bc bought those in bulk too. simply throw red pepper flakes in to the ground beans before you drip brew it and now it's spicy coffee instead of stale coffee!

anyways I eventually became A Better Cook and Started To Make Food That Is Spicy But You Can Actually Like. Taste Other Flavors. miss Spicy Coffee tho, wish I had the time to brew my own coffee again.

fast forward to like. a month ago.

I discovered about a month ago lo and behold that I Do Slightly Better life-wise if I Actually Eat Breakfast before running out the door even though it's like 6:45am and I'm not that hungry. and I had a bunch of old fancy farmer's market granola from like two years ago that was about to expire so I started eating that with some greek yogurt. but it was a small bag and I was about to run out. so I bugged housemate-partner-who-is-a-good-cook-my-beloved of would he consider helping make me a shit-ton of homemade bulk granola, I'd grab the ingredients and we could figure it out as we went along

except the thing is he Hates cooking by Vibes instead of A Recipe it Stresses Him Out So Much bc he is not used to people with the attitude of "eh if I fuck around I find out that is the deal I make with the universe I'll still eat it" he is used to people with the attitude of "if it's fucked up I am physically incapable of eating this"

so I. jokingly. as he expressed some Worry about "do we REALLY need to cook this by Vibes? can we Please find a granola recipe??" went "hey don't worry!! if it comes out Absolutely Terrible we can just use my old trick from grad school of throwing enough cayenne pepper into it that it just takes Spicy instead of Bad!" the joke being that like. spicy granola in yogurt that is a CRIME hell spicy granola is a crime who ever heard of spicy granola

.............except I was. really curious.

so the next morning I tried sticking some red pepper flakes so the texture wouldn't be disgusting into my granola and yogurt, I am nothing if not a caricature of myself, I live by the primary tenet of "commit to the bit" there did not exist a world in which once I had set forth that bit I would not Commit to it.

and it was delicious????? like it was weird Spicy Surprise but it was delicious. No Bit I Just Legitimately Like Spicy Granola Apparently With Or Without Yogurt.

so I Decided that let's not even wait for us to Potentially Fuck Up The Granola Recipe let's just put 3/4ths of a full shaker of red pepper flakes into it for Funnsies. because that's a reasonable amount of red pepper flakes, right? there's a lot of granola I want to make sure that there's a hint of spice in every bite!

out came a gallon and a half of Crimes Granola. the red pepper flakes got into the coconut oil so every single bite of it is infused with a huge amount of spice it is FUCKING DELICIOUS and to absolutely every single person in my house who have Nowhere Near My Spice Tolerance even the one who Likes Reasonably Spicy Things it is Totally Inedible I make a three month supply of booby-trapped granola that I and I alone can eat

anyways.

like two days later I proceeded to have an existential crisis about the fact that I'd made granola that I was the only person I knew who would like it, except also, Wei Wuxian would probably like it.

so yeah he's my fave.

[compacflt]

When it comes to historical research, do you research for things that DON'T exist? For example, foods that are common now but didn't exist in the average American restaurant or grocery in the '80s or '90's? Words, phrases, and entire concepts that are commonly accepted today but unheard of to the average American when Mav and Ice were at Top Gun?

Your writing is so unbelievably good.

not really because I don't care about food, I care about the literary device that is "taking communion." i.e. it doesn't matter what they eat, it only matters that they're eating together, for the plot.

And, okay, showing my little-kid bias, but was there actually stuff in grocery stores in the 80s/90s that wouldn't be there today/vice versa? brands might change, like okay Pringles might not exist but you still have potato chips; and obviously specialty stuff like what you find in your average Asian market might not be commonplace, but, like, were the 90s all that different from today, American-food-wise? its my assumption that they weren't, but I also wasn't alive in the 90s, so. Um, ectocooler Hi-C, maybe? that's the one 90s food I know.

attitudes of course are what change. today's concept of being so QUICK to publicly label sexual identities would be extremely foreign, for instance. obviously people did label their sexualities in the 80s & 90s, people were definitely calling themselves bisexual and such, but probably not the people ice & mav would be hanging out with, in the Reagan-era navy. which is what my fics are about. that's the whole point.

and, also, COMMUNICATION changes. I have never used a payphone in my whole life so I actually have no idea how they work. but they were ubiquitous "back then," and lend themselves to amazingly interesting conflict (omg I don't have enough change to call my boyfriend maverick who's mad at me!!!) which is why I lean on payphones so much in my writing. honestly, im gonna be real, the invention of the cell phone makes telling stories about miscommunication so much harder. instant-speed communication would make certain stories less interesting, which is why a lot of horror movies default to the "no cell service" trope to isolate their characters, or why some teen dramas have the characters reject cell phones on principle (Alyssa or James having a phone in 2017's "The End of the F***ing World" would solve most of their problems, which is why Alyssa smashes hers in the first five minutes and James basically says he views them as a cancer to society--if they had phones the story would be boring, so the writers took away their phones).

I also feel like people used to treat society differently "back then," i.e. Going Out was much more of a thing when there were 10 channels on TV and no one had cell phones, so you Went Out and had drinks & met strangers & interacted with general society to an extent im not sure we do anymore. So that experience is way more fun to write about in the 80s than today. (u can't see me but im seething with jealousy over ppl who were born in ~1965)

idk. im not sure I did a great job reproducing the zeitgeist of the 80s/90s in my fics, bc I wasn't there to have knowledge of what they were like. I got most of my presupposed knowledge about that time period from reading Calvin & Hobbes anthologies as a kid. oh well.

[wander-wren]

today i am angry because lightlark keeps (kept? i think it’s dead) getting compared to the hunger games

i don’t know if tumblr saw the lightlark drama and i’m not interested in rehashing it especially bc some of it got uncomfortably personal towards the author at one point and also it was months ago so just! suffice it to say lightlark is a book by alex aster, it is a terrible book, and i did not put myself through the torture of reading it but i did watch a 7.5 hour video essay

(i think the essay could have been 6 or even 5 hours, and i think this person went a little too hard on the critique at some points, so that rubbed me wrong a little but it was also extremely thorough and i was bored.)

but anyway. one of the big things about lightlark is that it was marketed as “hunger games x acotar” which is….fine. but every time someone compares a book to thg i’m automatically suspicious because no one does it right.

and of course, neither did lightlark.

the book is a complete disaster so i will try to stick only to the relevant points but seriously. there’s so much.

the official premise of lightlark is that six realms in a fantasy world have been cursed for hundreds of years. each curse is (supposed to be) a twisted version of the realms magic, and the curses also cut them off from their main island of lightlark. except for once every century, when the island becomes accessible for 100 days and the six rulers travel there to try to break the curses via death tournament.

but then you get to the book and learn that the curses are only broken if a ruler dies without an heir, since their special ruler magic just transfers to the heir and no one gets anywhere. this was only a caveat so we could have a young protagonist ruler, i’m sure. ALSO, IMPORTANTLY, if a ruler dies without an heir, their entire realm also dies.

and obviously that’s bad so the rulers have to consider carefully who they want to kill, and they keep putting the killing off bc it’s not easy to condemn thousands of people to death.

so why, pray tell, the FUCK, are you doing a death tournament every century.

(they’re not, by the way. the first 50 days are dedicated to some demonstrations that are definitely hunger games inspired and meant to allow the rulers to forge alliances bc even though there’s only six of them they’re also required to partner up for some reason?? but there’s almost no fighting and almost all the fight scenes end very quickly with no real damage to the main character. it got really annoying really fast.)

but like, let’s pretend for half a second that lightlark IS about six rulers fighting to the death to break a curse. it’s still not even close to being like the hunger games.

the hunger games was about teenagers under constant surveillance forced to perform and then kill for the masses, many because they weren’t rich enough to buy their way out or into good training.

no one except the rulers and the essential staff is even allowed on lightlark, and no i don’t know why that is. and the characters spend the entire book trying to avoid killing each other as much as possible (well, minus two cases) bc they want to find another way to break the curses. i don’t understand why it’s billed as this big bloody dangerous battle even in-universe when everyone involved really REALLY doesn’t want to fight.

also, this isn’t related to the thg nonsense, but if i’m talking about lightlark i have to talk about That Twist. alex aster really loves her twists and is very proud that no one can see them coming but that’s because reading the twists is like watching the street for cars, then trying to cross and getting hit by an airplane.

as i said, the characters keep trying to find a new way to break the curse, even though it’s been 500 years and many of the rulers have been alive that long (no i don’t know if that’s normal or a ruler perk, it’s not explained) so they SHOULD have tried all of these fairly obvious methods by now but SURE, JAN. this book would make so much more sense if it was only the first century and everyone was still scrambling to figure the curses out. but whatever. alex aster wanted her protagonist to be in a love triangle with two 500yo men

(there’s nothing inherently wrong with that and i actually really loved grim, not for the reasons i was supposed to bc the writing was bad, but i liked him, until—well, put a pin in that.)

ANYWAY. THE POINT. our protagonist, who i guess i should say is named isla, needs to find “the heart of lightlark” which “blooms where darkness meets light.” everyone assumes they’re looking for a super special flower but they can’t find it. then, isla decides this random-ass bird that’s only almost gotten her killed twice is DEFINITELY going to show them the heart, so they follow the bird.

and at dawn, the bird lays a fucking egg. and it falls out of the nest. and cracks. and the yolk. floats. into the air. in time with the rising sun.

I CANNOT EMPHASIZE ENOUGH HOW MUCH IT IS A LITERAL FUCKING EGG

no foreshadowing. isla has an internal monologue where she thinks she always did see the moon as an eggshell and the sun as yolky, but the yolky sun description happens twice in 400+ pages and the egg moon description happens Never, so like. shoutout to aster’s copy editor??

i can’t take this book seriously bc it is a literal egg an EGG isla has to carry an EGG YOLK to break the curses. there are scenarios where i could accept that but this Serious YA Fantasy Book is not one of them.

and since i mentioned the one thing i did actually like, i will explain isla’s one love interest, grim. technically her only love interest bc nothing about the other guy struck me as romantic but idk maybe her inner monologue was yearning or smthn. anyway, grim.

grim is from the least trusted/most stigmatized realm. he’s described as a huge hulking nightmare of a man, a demon, every badscary description under the sun. but like. the times he is alone with isla? he takes her to a chocolate shop during their first meeting and hand feeds her truffles, which is a little weird and overly sexual but…still. chocolate. then he hides her from another ruler no questions asked even though he has every right to be suspicious. he opens up to her and shit. he calls her “hearteater” (it’s a reference to her curse, her people eat human hearts to survive, no that doesn’t make sense either) (also isla is magically not cursed so our protagonist doesn’t have to be scary and gross and worry about that during the novel haha!) (guess what else is never properly explained….)

anyway grim calls her “hearteater” but like, almost in a teasing/endearing way, which is fun, and when they start to fall in love he just calls her “heart” which is ALSO cute imo i’m weak for nicknames. he’s like. the narration and aster really really want me to think he’s the scary bad boy but he’s just such a soft dude.

and then. ohhhh, and then. one of the other hit-by-airplane twists is that the weird sexy dreams isla has been having all book about grim? they’re not dreams. they’re memories. the two of them used to be together for about a year before the book started, and grim erased her memories as part of a plot to betray her yada yada i was braindead by this point so i don’t fully remember all 17 elements of the betrayal. but like…..first of all that retroactively makes all of their interactions but especially the chocolate thing kind of weird and creepy? also WHAT was the FUCKING POINT pf making her forget she loves you if you’re literally just going to seduce her immediately anyway. like. the book makes a halfhearted effort at having grim avoid her but it really didn’t feel like he was purposely being mean to push her away. because every time they did interact he was so sweet! sir!!

anyway he betrayed isla probably mostly to keep up the ambiguity of the love triangle and so aster could brag about more twists and i hate that bc WHY. he was doing so well.

anyway. i got so far off track. lightlark is a wild fucking ride and i did not even scratch the surface of the plot-hole filled mess that this book is. my sister does own it and i did check a few things bc i straight up could not believe they were real (like the egg. i cannot get over the egg.) so.

also this book only got published bc it went viral on booktok so that kind of tells you everything you need to know. the good news is it does give me some measure of hope/an ego boost bc if lightlark exists in the world…..surely whatever i’m doing can’t be too bad.

[worflesbian]

things i liked about strange new worlds:

the costumes (aside from the starfleet uniform) were so intricate and cool!

the alien designs, especially the practical effects and makeup, were inventive but not overdone

it tried to take a lighter tone than the prevailing edginess of current sci fi, there were some fun moments and genuinely good character stuff bc of that

things i disliked about strange new worlds:

okay i've got to give the context of the journey i went on with this one. i didn't initially like how chapel, uhura and t'pring were written bc the first two were basically brand new characters and t'pring's inclusion messes with continuity so badly, but i found myself being won over by the seemingly honest intention to give more screentime and depth to the otherwise underutilised women of 60s trek. that's an admirable goal! i didn't like how they had to rewrite uhura and chapel's personalities to achieve it but i still respected the intention. until several things became clear to me: firstly, the writers of snw are far better at lighthearted writing than serious drama, and secondly, they cover up that deficit by taking their cues from soap operas. i think other people have mentioned that giving every single character a tragic backstory is not a shortcut for writing realistic sympathetic people (this was the main problem they had with uhura), and that relationship drama and love triangles is not a solution to not knowing what to do with your female characters (the main problem with chapel and t'pring), but it stands to be said again because it's so fucking frustrating! why bring in uhura only to kill off her loved ones and make her suffer needlessly? why bring in t'pring under the guise of developing her relationship with spock only to have him leave her for chapel? why bring in chapel and rewrite her as a hashtag girlboss looking to advance her career if she's theoretically going to end up still a nurse on the enterprise pining for spock by tos? there's no reason or purpose to the plotlines so they just feel aimless

m'benga, una and la'an also suffered from needless tragedies, as well as the writers' difficulty tackling serious subject matter. i liked the plotline with m'benga's daughter and the pre-holodeck holodeck episode that concluded it, but the man got no time to grieve or adjust to the loss before they threw him into a war trauma plotline. una's main character moment was a weaker version of several stronger trial episodes in past trek that came very close to saying something slightly challenging (to the average trek viewer) about race but apparently forgot the real reason that eugenics are bad, and have been bad long before fictional warlord khan noonien-singh was on the scene. la'an's gorn trauma plotline was, like many of snw's "serious" episodes, ripped directly from better sci fi. like i could've been watching aliens. aliens is a good film. ortegas got very little to do and pike isn't really worth talking about as i think the writers know he's not that interesting and tend to sideline him anyway, so aside from hemmer (rip) and spock (it's all been said) that's the full cast and it's all pretty disappointing!

i'll also say that while i enjoyed the lighthearted episodes more, the only one that i felt was actually warranted or contributed meaningfully the overall season was the body swap episode in s1, but then in s2 they repeated the same formula with a far weaker episode so even that's lost its shine for me. politically the show is a mess as many others have explained (the whole gorn thing...) and when it comes close to making a point it always seems to flinch away into a marketing-approved federation optimism that feels way more sinister than it ever did in tng for the fact that it's obviously Trying to keep you from thinking too deeply about anything. the number of gimmick episodes they've already done in two short seasons is indicative of a fundamental lack of substance that they're trying to cover up with whimsy but it just feels unearned and imbalanced. shallow hijinks or vapid angst, void of meaning.

so yeah now that discovery's concluded with its fifth season, stp is dead and gone, and prodigy is cancelled it's only strange new worlds and lower decks left and although i believe lower decks relies a lot on references to older trek (i've not seen it) it's not inserted itself awkwardly into some past era of the timeline, nor is it bogged down with legacy characters, meaning strange new worlds is the last remaining pillar of the reboot remake rehash industrial complex in current trek and i hope you'll join me in wishing for its downfall 🤞

[nadekofannumber1]

need to know what you thought of Nadeko Around

Honestly I blasted through the book pretty quick and I’m gonna prolly take a reread and put out more thoughts later. However, what I think of it now is that it’s a good Nadeko finale in a sense. I’d of course love to see more Nadeko but she really got her shit together in this one so a lot of character growth isn’t really something I see in the future. I’d like to see the confidant kinda mean Nadeko thrive!

More info below

I feel like it kind of went through all the major tennants of Nadeko:

Learning to want to live and feel alive

As a member of the “nadeko detested living to the degree she doesn’t want to live” believer club, I’m proud to announce that Nadeko is learning to feel alive and let go of inhibitions. Nadeko goes from feeling guilty for being “so spoiled” because she didn’t know shit about island survival scenarios, to being actively proud and happy when she wins to dropping her guard living ungracefully and actively going feral. Nadeko experiences the joys of it all and it’s wonderful.

The love of creation

Nadeko draws, Nadeko draws a lot it’s the whole thing she creates and she does things that are special. Nadeko becomes a wizard and that’s so awesome. The thesis of this book is the love of creation and how it drives people to truly live.

Society, roles, clothes, and appearance

Nadeko in this story abandons a lot of what society finds pure with her appearance, being gaunt, tanned, covered in wounds with calloused hands, building light muscle, having short hair. A ton of traits that make certain types scream and throw up in hatred for “not being pure”. While Nadeko does wear the uniform it’s a complex thing where it’s comfortable and there’s identity in it but Nadeko feels as if she’d prefer to wear other things even changing for the final confrontation. Honestly it makes me wonder about how they’d adapt it into an anime outside the obvious bc Nadeko acquires a ruggedness I think some would find hard to market unless simplified aesthetically. My final wonder is what outfit Tsukihi put her in as nademono had threads of the concept of Nadeko reconnecting with concepts of femininity and repairing that relationship but putting Nadeko in a cute outfit feels wrong. Personally I’d prefer perhaps something gnc or masculine and maybe trendy but also I’d take something mature aesthetic wise. I just feel that doubling down on the tomboyness (and also other potential read’s of Nadeko’s character with gender) would actually suit Nadeko well as one that forges their own path and doesn’t necessarily need to conform to tradition (being something entirely self made, for the love of creation).

Recognizing and self actualizing one’s own circumstance

Nadeko though this arc looks at her past and decides that it is the past and she was done wrong in said past. This includes Nadeko acknowledging that her parents did see her like the stuffed toys they bought her, Nadeko is self aware and understanding “I was sheltered but shit is fucked” and “I also get what my parents meant but I’m not changing carrier paths.”

Getting meaner on purpose

Nadeko’s arc involves her getting less cute and more mean on purpose. Urako tries to get under her skin but Nadeko is just like “whatever bro, don’t care, gonna save you btw.” Nadeko being allowed to be mean and falling from that grace can be also analyzed via parallels with hanekawa and shinobu but I think that’s a big post topic. TLDR Nadeko becoming more open and rude and honest is a break from society and tradition and Nadeko doesn’t need that. Nadeko needs to be free to go off and live her atypical life even if others don’t get her. Even if Nadeko works in the “real world” she doesn’t become normal and take normal paths set for her and I’m proud of her for that. Nadeko can work with others but doesn’t have to pretend.

Kind of the autism power fantasy jk(unless…..)

That current of homoeroticism that isn’t stated but definitely came to something

Nadeko got her “first kiss” (mouth to mouth with Yotsugi) and she spent so much time on that island thinking about drawing naked women and women’s bodies, and then the urako moment happened, and of course the beloved mention of Tsukihi in a pure positive light. Even with believing these characters are just friends nisio sure does love ramping up undertones as much as he possibly can. That it kinda becomes a cope to look away from their importance to Nadeko.

Even in a straight Nadeko scenario the image invokes a concept of experimenting with one’s self and identity which is integral to the coming of age aspects of Nadeko’s character arc (i also think that what Nadeko did with araragi was trying to experiment safely to test waters and limits, and that can still even apply in the straight Nadeko scenario.)

Nadeko’s family doesn’t want to talk to her much even though she’s successful and is forging her own path. Mangakaphobic, they really did hate her for coming out (as a mangaka) to them, they thought they had a normal daughter who wanted to be a bride and put it on forms of what she wanted to be when she grew up. Pay no mind to the fact Nadeko is masking her true self and picking what she’s supposed to. Nadeko a cute innocent girl but she came out (as a mangaka) and they hated that, Nadeko always had a secret she kept in the closet that she felt her parents disapproved of and yet in that closet was her real self (mangaka), the wanted the image of her to remain pure so even when Nadeko came back home and cut her hair short they hoped Nadeko would choose to go back on the path they wanted for her (not a mangaka), and yet that ended up with her homeless and taking odd jobs, years later Nadeko tries contact but won’t give up on being who she is it’s a them problem that they won’t accept her at this point, Nadeko will never stop being who she is and won’t closet herself in this society (from openly being a mangaka)

Nadeko valuing relationships with others

Nadeko’s aquisition of friends is more emphasized in Nadeko draw by presence but here it’s emphasized by silence how much Nadeko values her relationships with others. Yearning pining and surviving!

Nadeko not really thinking about Koyomi

A fun one! When you see a lot of character’s internality you can kind of see those opinions, and progressively through arcs Nadeko truly realizes those feelings were kind of misplaced and generally doesn’t think about the guy almost at all compared to a lot of other characters in subsequent arcs, Nadeko doesn’t really even bring up the guy herself until she’s about to die from that snake, there is reflection in urako of course but it’s a beautiful metaphor of scale peeling and “shedding one’s skin”

—————-

Even after this there’s a lot of fun implications with urako making the snake charms and kaiki dealing out fake ones that accidentally ended up activating. Real fascinating enriching chewable concept.

I got more I suppose but that’s all for now, expect other Nadeko brainrot posts in the future (and maybe something about shinomono 1 if I find motivation)

Nadeko’s autism truly has evolved into evil autism (congratulatory)

[ppnuggie]

　　　　　　TRACKS x gn reader

　　　　『　tracks ,, gender neutral reader 』

　　-> reader n tracks are partners at a local police station . pt.1

　　— tw :: death ,, past trauma w/ reader ,, bullets + gunfire ,, mentions of a gang ,, human trafficking ,, black market

　　— tried to think of what would be somewhat upsetting for this little short series w/ tracks . reader is a cop and is working on a case together w/ tracks . really just putting some tracks content out there bc theres nothing of him and i like him a lot :( feel free to request anything of him or ask questions abt the past few series :3 ill be happy to explain anything rlly . this is set in the g1 timeline too . this is pretty much an introduction to the series <3

— feel free to reblog or give any comments / feedback ! <3 i enjoy reading them and seeing my work spread !

          " officer (l/n) ,, this is your new partner ." was what you heard from the chief ,, setting down your drink and looking up to meet the large mech in front of you . he was one of those cybertronians from space ,, here on earth for some reason . you didnt keep up with the news as of late ,, busy mourning your previous partner who had died in a recent crossfire between a gang that you two had been tracking for some weeks now . " hello ,, it's nice to meet you ,," you nodded to the brightly colored mech . " it's tracks ,, and it's nice to meet you as well officer ." he replied . his voice was different from what you've heard before in your life .

          silky and velvety ,, as though it would be from the most expensive of cloth around the world . it was that of one you would hear from those rich british men who came overseas and always had something to complaim about . yet ,, he didnt seem the type to do that .

          " well tracks ,, hope youre good with long term cases ." you snicker to yourself before taking a quick sip of your drink and opening the case file to the previously mentioned gang . " my previous partner and i had gotten somewhat close to arresting these punks ,, but things happened and they ended up escaping ." tracks got down to one knee ,, his arm resting over his leg as he peered over your shoulder . you saw the chief leave the room out of the corner of your eye ,, and resumed your focus to the file .

          " what gang is this ?" tracks asked ,, scanning over the words in the file . your hand came to your chin ,, explaining what you knew so far of the crooks . " they deal with human trafficking ,, kidnapping women who stray a little too far from the street lights to sell and trade on the black market . they've also been known to be the result of a few mass murders down town in some clubs ." you take another quick sip from your drink ,, flipping the pages . " last we saw them was in an alley of a bar ,, leaving in a limousine . so i'm guessing they've either got a hella lot of money ,, or they're good business partners with those who do ."

          tracks nodded ,, taking in the information better than you'd assume he would . maybe you were expecting a few disgusted looks or a gag ,, yet received nothing of the sort . " do you know their usual routine yet ?" he asked ,, helm turning your way . " kind of ,, though i'm not sure it really can count as a routine . the most active they are is on wednesday nights ,, usually in allies of bars or clubs . the closest i had gotten to getting a lead on them was two weeks ago ."

          " what happened ? im assuming you didnt figure out where they went ,," he tilted his helm to the side . " some others were behind me an' my partner ,, they shot at us a bit . one of their bullets grazed my partner ,, and ever since i havent been able to work on the case ." you casted your eyes to the side ,, remembering the night . adrenaline had pumped vigorously through your veins ,, trying your damnest to steer clear of the bullets flying past the vehicle . you did manage to steer clear of them ,, though at the cost of your partner getting severely injured . the images of it flooded your mind ,, squinting your eyes close and taking another sip of your drink .

           " sorry for your loss ." tracks murmured lowly ,, unsure of what to do . you only shook your head ,, brushing it off . " doesnt matter ,, just be sure youre ready later tonight for a bit of patrolling ." you waved your hand at him ,, leaving the case file with the mech so he can review it as much as needed .

[ghostchanuwu]

Brain is running again it's not windows longhorn I swear so now I'm gonna yap about aniredux before I post more character redesigns

Ye I'm adding a cut bc this is gonna be LONG

Hilda and Hilbert are twins and attended BB Academy before officially going on their journey (they broke off around Nimbasa,Hilda traveled with Iris while Hilbert remained with Bianca and Cheren)

Hilda is one of the co-founders of Driftveil's PWT since she convinced Clay to fund the project to draw in more people to bolster Unova's economy (Draydon,Alder and Grimsly are also co-founders)

Hilbert runs the PokeMusical building in Nimbasa along with historical preservation efforts in the city (ie the Ferris Wheel and the old gym)

Caitlin swaps between fairy and psychic on a bi-yearly basis along with Shauntal having a partial specialty in ground

Alder became champion on complete accident and when Iris took the title he went back to Floccesy Town to become a full-time teacher since that is his passion outside of battling (Benga got his Larvesta from him on his 7th birthday as an egg)

Unova is the 2nd oldest league with the oldest being Kalos (Kalos' was originally founded as an annual festival in celebration of the war against Paldea ending,Paldea holds a similar festival which lines up with Uva-Naranja graduations)

Central and Northern Sinnoh is very cold year around which extends to nearly the whole region in the Winter aside from Sunnyshore and Canalave which are actually quite warm

As lax as Hoenn seems it's actually one of the more volatile regions to travel to,the populace compensates for that by making the towns and cities as inviting as possible (ie Slateport's massive seaside market,Lilycove's regular hosting of national Contest Finals,ect) along with having a shockingly high happiness rate

Kalos has a charming tradition of all their fairy specialists taking up a partial dark type and vice versa with it originating from how deeply the region cherishes Xerneas and Yvetal (dragon specialists in the region also usually end up having either a dark type or a fairy type on their team)

Johto funnily enough is still mostly rural despite having the strongest economy on the continent (Goldenrod is a major hub)

And now for some not so world building blurbs

Nobody actually knows where Brock came from and the only thing really known about him is that he is loosely related to Bruno (the Pewter Mining Company adopted him when he was a toddler since he didn't have any parents,turns out he's from Orre and has family in Alola)

I've actually been toying around with the idea of giving Steven an older brother who never became a trainer and instead is a member of the Hoennian Navy (the Navy is actually quite small and mainly functions as a much more well funded coastguard along with reporting to the Ranger Corps),he would be 6 years older than Steven and would take over Devon after their father gets ousted since Steven wants nothing to do with any of them anymore (still trying to come up with a name for him and leaning towards Silas or Abram,he's much more on the stern side with a serious nature and rarely ever smiles)

N and Ghetsis are fully related (reading through the Underwater Ruin's text again with the story of the king gave me an idea what to do with N's character),N is the one who inherited the King's Blood whereas Ghetsis didn't,it was Ghetsis who wiped out his bloodline (N was an infant,the pokemon who raised him belonged to his Mother and Father and the Zorua having hatched around the same time that he was born),N is 19 at the time of Unova Arc

Sycamore and Lysandre aren't officially together but they do flirt with each other on occasion with the professor bringing him his favorite strawberry macarons and Lysandre taking Sycamore out to dinner in Annistar during the meteor showers

[angy-grrr]

Yeah bkdk wouldnt be dead in the fandom. But it would be dead in the canon story. And at that point, if you make izch canon it would open door to the canonization of other stuff. Who is ti say Bones would not push for it?

I think you are jumping into conclusions…? The manga ended without them being canon. Let’s start by that, we can’t assume all of that when they didn’t get together in the first place. Sure, the extras could imply something, but their arc ended pretty well on its own and felt pretty closed, he can leave it like that and it would make sense for the story; there’s no reason to actually 100% believe they’ll be canon, bkdk dies as a romantic pair in the manga and every straight ship becomes part of the canon world of the anime no matter how nonsensical it is. Who is to say Bones would not push for it? I’m nobody to say anything, but I sure talk a lot -if Bones cares about making money, they will just keep focusing on the action part. I’ll use an example ppl loveeee to bring up when discussing extra straight content post canon: nar//uto. Ppl in the west went crazy when he got married and had a child with Hinata at the end of the manga, and while not all of the original target audiences liked it, many did bc naru//hina was the most popular ship in Japan according to popularity ship polls, along with sasu///saku. As a series, Nar//uto used lots of fan service for the anime adaptation, including some kisses between the two male leads besides the original manga one if I remember correctly, but it was always as a funny gag. We won’t know if the mangaka wanted to make them super close friends or lovers or a third thing, but we know ppl there loved those straight ships. from a marketing point of view, now it makes no sense to add romance into a pair that doesn’t need it anymore.

idk if horikoshi will add it, or ask them to do it, or admit he wanted to do it but “didn’t have time for it”… but I know Bones added extra content probably bc they thought they needed to compensate from the lack of romantic content in the manga, and for the last seasons have kept pretty loyal to the source material and even cut some scenes which were interpreted as “omg izu///ocha moment” in the manga for some (I’m not talking about fans liking that moment and feeling excited, it’s more about those ppl who claimed every time they interacted “bkdk is dead, we won!!”)

Also jokes on you who would actually date those freaks, they would emotionally cheat on them all the time accidentally -and I know Kacchan, he is NOT getting married and less to a woman.

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 3/21/2023

i didn't want to sit down and write this bc i was having too much fun playing viddy gaem

listening

IT'S QUICKER AND EASIER TO EAT YOUR YOUNG!!!

"i'm starving...darling,,," is very sexy but the way the lyrics slowly slide into something more and more horrifying until the chorus hits??? mwah. lovely.

my one critique is that this song is...breathy, for lack of a better word? does not showcase the man's magnificent pipes. oh well! there are other songs.

how'd i find this: im gay, also he is one of the most popular indie artists in the World. his first album went platinum six fucking times.

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reading

i read all of frank miller's sin city bc im on a noir kick and i didn't have a good time. the closest i got to fun was (deadly little, always described as "deadly little") Miho, a mute japanese??? generic asian??? assassin who is tits out not in these panels but in almost all others, rollerblading around mowing down guys with her katana. that was a painful sentence to write.

i read a lot of genre fiction. i read a lot of older genre fiction. they are not written with me, a bisexual "woman", in mind. and that’s ok bc not everything has to be written with me in mind. rarely have i read something that is more For The Boys Only!!! than frank miller’s sin city. felt kind of gross and a little put off the whole time i read these and they made me a little bit upset and afraid of men in a way i have not felt since high school. now it does feel odd to go “i didn’t think this noir was very pleasant >:(“ but miller’s work feels unpleasant and distinct from, say, chandler or hammett in a way i am still having trouble articulating. it is possible that the misogyny in chandler is a flavor i already know and barely register the taste of anymore. it may be that i got tired of looking at miller's women with twelve-inch waists and nipples as full and perky as their mouths.

mostly i think the labor market in sin city is super fucked up. women in sin city exist to have their value extracted from them in a way that is different and worse than normal capitalism. like, i can see how someone would read these comics and go full SWERF. women are literal trophies, both arm candy and in a very upsetting trophy hunting way. especially in the final volume, women are machines of potential profit. aside from one landlady and one cop and one child who grows up to be a prostitute, all the women in this whole city seem to be prostitutes or prostitutes who have married up and out. like there aren’t really even any women on the street just walking or in diners. it’s all dudes.

this is probably a comics vs novels thing, but miller is often sadistic in a way that chandler is not. a guy dies on a page to make cool art. they fuckin mow through dozens of goons a volume. if a guy dies in chandler it’s usually bc chandler's philip marlowe has stumbled across a dead body accident and it becomes a tremendous pain in order to tip off the cops that a body needs retrieving without getting framed for the kill. marlowe (and by extension chandler) is a people person-- he is a detective bc he likes figuring out what makes people tick. he is alert and it's hard to get one over on him but his resting state is congenial. despite his job, he still does believe in the concept of justice.

sin city (more of a comment than a question) says "if people piss you off you should kill them." this is not to make light of the very real Situations that protagonists in sin city find themselves, but there are very few problem solving skills on display other than "apply dick" or "apply gun". VERY RARELY, "apply pussy". that last one almost never works out tho.

aside from All That, it does contain some of the best straight up art (not just comics art) ive ever seen. the command of light and shadow is incredible. the command of negative space is incredible. panels aren’t busy unless they’re showing the chaos of a scene. he doesn't draw every single brick bc that's not important to the scene. it’s really quite stunning.

also the MOVEMENT in this fringe is incredible. do u see what i mean about the nipples tho

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watching

i gotta lotta fuckin bones to pick with the manda/lorian but they're all spoilery. this shit fucking sucks man. it's twenty fucking twenty three we have had well over a century to master storytelling through the art of the moving image.

all three eps so far have felt very weirdly edited-- like a lot of changes happened after filming and there wasn't enough time for pickups?? this is a gajillion dollar show just reshoot some shit on your little fake stage i am Begging you. at least bo-katan looked hot. god she's awful i love her

again again i say to ye, what if star wars was good? i am slightly terrified that andor may have ruined me for any s/tar wars that follows but by any metric these first three s3 mando eps are simply not good television.

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playing

ty @pasta-pardner for gifting me Weird West some weeks ago bc it is the new thing i am obsessed with. this first trailer gives a better sense of the Vibes than the launch trailers imo

i find it is scratching a lot of the rpg itches that new vegas does: you wander around beautiful western settings running into weird shit, followed around by a hot butch you've recruited to your cause. unlike new vegas, it is a little less forgiving and you have to really scrap and loot everything that isn't nailed down.

this is a top-down action rpg with a weird little aiming system that is sort of a 3D twinstick? it takes some getting used to, and shooting is not the part of any game i am particularly good at. here's xbox wire's screenshot, which gives a good idea of how isometric it is and what enemy detection looks like. i do wish i could expand the minimap, bc some of the locations like mines or bigger towns can really sprawl.

i have one big annoyance bc it is a thing that made me take a break and sulk for a bit: as you're traveling across the map (not open world, location-based), you can run into Travel Encounters. you can decline to engage with some of them. you cannot save within or between the encounters unless you stop and make camp. if you're on a long journey to a different corner of the map, you might run into three Travel Encounters. if you die on the third, you are catapulted back to your starting point. this is tremendously annoying in the early game, so either take short trips or get good at about-facing and exiting areas quickly.

a writer i admire likes games that let him tell stories about what happened in the game to other people-- this is a game that very much facilitates that. i was ambushed during a Travel Encounter by the some outlaws, bc i accidentally let one escape while i was trying to collect a bounty on his boss, and that specific named grunt came back with a Vendetta. but! i met a dying outlaw from the band who kidnapped my character's husband in a different second encounter, swapped some bandages for a treasure map, and he is now a Friend for Life. so he showed back up to help me during that ambush AGAINST FELLOW OUTLAWS WHO SEEM TO HAVE SOME SORT OF MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING??? mWAH. DELICIOUS. LOVE SYSTEMS INTEROPERATING.

ive put like six hours into this, and it has five chapters with five different characters. i have not progressed past the first chapter bc i am having so much fun poking around. i am so so so grateful that the first character is a wife seeking revenge and not the other way around. ppl are throwing big baby tantrums in the steam forums about this but you know what? some husbands should be macguffins sometimes. widens their perspective.

i am fascinated by the drips and drabs of lore this game is feeding me. there's an order of witches with huge underground temples that (crucially!) they did not build, but have adopted for their own uses without really understanding who built them and why. i want to know so much more about their whole shit. there are werewolves but idk what their deal is bc i haven't met any yet.

i am a simple woman! i only demand perfect cowboy western-flavored rpgs and so far this is holding up. i will have more thoughts as i go along but goddamn is it fun to play. we truly do love a competent little rpg with interesting lore and good stealth mechanics that lets you loot everything in sight.

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making

mostly fallow week, wrists hurty

made this tuna-chickpea salad for lunch. it is quite rich for a lunch. there are a lot of components that may be challenging to digest all together for a milennial with tummy troubles.

this would have definitely been improved by solid instead of cheap chunk tuna (or salmon. this would be great with canned salmon) and if i actually chopped the baby spinach instead of going "it's fine" and flinging it all in. or maybe wilting the spinach, but that's a lot of extra work and this would be a very warm, wet salad :/ the point is the chickpeas really want to sink to the bottom. i like that there is no cooking involved, only assembling, but realistically i have only half of these ingredients in my house at any given time. screengrabs from the site bc i paid a dollar but there's no reason you have to