#because when it comes to its arrangements it feels like a really good mix of both

[muppetjackrackham]

haven't talked about chess in a hot minute but i think we need to bring back some of the synthpop arrangements from the original concept album for songs like the arbiter and one night in bangkok because whatever benny and björn put in there is better than prozac

[bug-bites]

west side apartment, paper plane

tw: brief non-graphic mentions of ghost going thru war stuff and ghost's backstory in the comics (changed a few details because this is fanfic. duh), slight angst (bc yk,, yearning) but sort of fluff if ghost had a dollar for every moment he spent yearning he would have enough money to retire and live a happy life away from the military, also we're pretending british chinese takeout is good, not proofread :P

pairing: simon "ghost" riley x gn!reader (like always can be read as platonic or romantic)

characters: simon "ghost" riley

a/n: i hate how fucking massive the song link is but yk what its fine. but i am back and in a laufey moment!

simon has lived an interesting life, maybe he wouldn’t use interesting. if he could describe it he would probably use words like terrifying, cruel, or for a lack of better terms, shitty. from the moment he was born it seemed like misery and tragedy followed him around like a stray dog, finding its way into every aspect of his existence. his childhood home was always something he wanted to escape, or rather his father was what he wanted to run away from. there were good moments after he kicked the old bastard out, but the ever present threat of tragedy proved that it wouldn’t last. life had been cruel, dealing him possibly the worst hand possible, the only constant being misfortune, that is until you came along.

a temporary living arrangement. thats all it was. rent was a little too much for one person to afford, so you both signed the lease on a crummy, small, mixed-use apartment right in the middle of manchester. it wasn’t much, takeout dinners from the restaurant below and late rent payments were the norm but even with the busted heating, life in that apartment had never felt so warm.

after long shifts at your respective jobs he would come home, plastic bags of takeout in his hands, a sign for you to set a few blankets on the ground before both of you eat ungodly amounts of shrimp fried rice and orange sesame chicken. he could spend hours listening to you speak, nothing made him feel so at home. maybe it was the fact that the food was good and also inexpensive, or maybe it was because he was too exhausted to do anything else, but he loved those long sleepless nights spent sitting on the floor, talking about everything and nothing. simon cant imagine another time in his life when he was genuinely so happy or another time he laughed so hard water came out his nose.

he especially loved opening fortune cookies with you at the end of every meal. sure, he never believed in those fortunes but the idea was always fun to entertain. the sound of the cookie cracking open to expose the slip of paper, revealing what the future had in store for him usually filled him with a childlike curiosity. or at least got a laugh out of him.

“hah, mine says ‘there will be a happy romance for you shortly’. these things really could not be farther from the truth. bet yours is more accurate” you say, popping half of the broken cookie into your mouth “your father loves you and is always with you. remember that.” he reads out loud with a chuckle “oh. that- hm. yeah i take that back”

but the one thing he loved more than opening those silly fortunes with you or the late night dinners was after you both cleaned up the empty takeout boxes, taking the menus and folding them into paper planes. it became a sort of tradition after you got bored and began to mess around with the glossy paper that listed mouthwatering dishes and house specials. he could never get it right, one wing was always too big or his folds were clumsily made and uneven, making them practically incapable of flight but yours were the complete opposite. each crease made was perfect, every intricate pleat skillfully crafted to allow the small paper aircraft to glide through the air with ease. as you tossed your planes off the balcony of your shared flat, the sight of the plane sailing through the air as the sun set always filled the both of you with a sense of nostalgia. and of course you both picked them up and tossed them out because we dont mess w/ littering over here

simon cant help but look back at those simpler times and miss them. he knows from the start it was intended to be temporary, but he’s been through so much chaos and trauma all he just wants a quiet life where he doesnt have to be ghost. he just wants a nice warm home to come back to. it doesnt have to be big, it doesnt have to be expensive, it just has to feel like home. it just has to feel like you. its been so long since the two of you parted ways but as he stares at the last paper airplane that he kept, he cant help but wonder if you feel that way too. as he lies awake in his bed at the military base he’s stationed in, he spends those nights craving that domesticity he had with you. he recalls every memory, every minute detail that made him love that cramped apartment and maybe how he loved you even more.

[lokh]

Okay, I won't lie NSW is more than slightly outside of my area of expertise when it comes to camping but the basics are the same anywhere. You said you have a tent and bag and some gear so we're not starting out at baby beginnings.

Step one, check the forecast. If its gonna be a heat wave or a cold snap or pissing rain wouldn't it be nice to know that before you're sitting miserable in a tent in the middle of nowhere? Plan accordingly, pack accordingly and you will be amazed how much you can deal with if you're prepared for it. Personally I have a nice rainshell with me at all times because it acts as a windbreak, water barrier, and exposure layer. I have taken a rainshell into the mojave desert where it never rains and I was right to do so because the wind got cold. I have occasionally been the overprepared dork, but I have more often been the only one not getting hypothermia.

Step two, know where you're going. As in, what to expect not just physically where it is. Are there restrooms? Water? Animals? Poisonous/stabby plants? Poisonous/stabby bugs? Other campers? Poisonous/stabby campers? Hazards? Cell service? Emergency services? Gas stations? Can you safely have a fire? Can you toast/grill your food or are you having cold dinner?

Step three, pack the most obscenely overdone toiletries kit you can imagine. Yes, this is actually important. My god, human bodies are messy. All your basic overnight goodies and then add sunscreen, bug dope, wet wipes or something similar, your own toilet paper and something to dig with if you're going out past available restrooms, and a small first aid kit. The kit doesn't have to be a full triage supply, tweezers, bandaids, antiseptic and maybe some gauze if you're clumsy. If you are gonna be doing a lot of walking/hiking I also recommend moleskin for blisters. Put the moleskin on BEFORE the blister pops.

Step four, look at the forecast again, assume it's wrong and pack for the worst weather possible. You need a dry pair of socks and undies. You need long sleeves and a spare shirt. Even if it doesn't feel like it, you will sweat through the day and get damp and if you sleep in the same thing you've been wearing you will get chilled. This is why every one says no cotton for camping, no matter where you are. I have a full change of clothes for sleeping so my day clothes can air and dry overnight.

Step five is food and its really each to his own for this one. If you're hiking out you will be more limited as far as weight/refrigeration, but thats somewhat of a trial and error thing. Freeze dried meals have their place but there is no reason it has to be your go to. Remember your water and remember that if you sweat and replace it with nothing but water you will be hurting. Powdered drink mix is your friend. If you're car camping and tenting next to the car I just bring a 5 gallon jug of water that stays in the car and refill waterbottles as needed. (Note: Senshi from dungeon meshi isn't actually an unattainable fantasy, you can cook a full scale meal in the backcountry if you really want to. It is several magnitudes more difficult than you would think if you are used to cooking in a kitchen, but it is possible.)

Step six is assessing your gadgets. If you want your phone you probably need a power pack to charge it. You will want a flashlight for the dark, not your phone, not glowsticks. If you want a camera you have to figure out how to carry that with you. You also need to figure out if you have cell service and a way to call for help. The more intense you get into this, the more you should look at getting a GPS or inreach/spot device, especially if you want to go alone. This is also a good time to come to grips with the falliblity of technology and get a paper map.

Step seven is for sleeping arrangements, which you seem to have covered. My rip is to set up sleeping stuff as soon as you get to where your making camp, so that way your bag has a chance to loft and your aren't fiddling with stuff sacks in the dark when your tired. And drunk if you're party camping. Open the sleeping bag before the tequila. Also a sleeping pad will protect your bag and also your joints so you don't wake up feeling like Rip van Winkle.

Have fun, be safe, don't be a dick and clean up after your self at your campsite. Sleeping in the dirt is a great time and I hope you enjoy your trip.

thank you so much!!!! i had a great trip but it wouldve been better if id followed your advice more carefully LMAO

[lavenderbexlatte]

day 20: only one bed

kard 1.5k words female reader insert Reader x Matthew Kim (BM) NSFW

🖤 warnings: inappropriate coworker relationships, yes i turned one of the all-time best tropes into a prompt be mad about it🖤

🎂 happy matthew day~

kinktober masterlist

connect with me! / masterlist

This all sounded way less ridiculous on paper.

Or, like, in an email.

When they were planning the room arrangements for this company trip, you'd thought it was no big deal to volunteer be placed in a mixed-gender room. There just wasn't the budget to put everyone separately, and not enough pre-planned pairs to make it work without mixing different branches together. It seemed like a simple courtesy to say that you'd be okay with someone from a different branch, and a different gender, if it came to all that.

But once you saw the final lineup, you knew you'd be in for it.

Not that you got a bad roommate, or anything. You've actually met him a few times before, and he's a cool guy. Very gentle, polite.

He's just also extremely hot.

You've never really registered exactly how hot, before. Over the three or four other conferences like this one, you've always been glued to your work bestie. But she transferred departments, and now here you are.

Here, at the open bar that the company set up in the hotel lounge, watching him chat with a group of people.

His suit jacket is long gone, his shirt unbuttoned by a few more inches than it was when he arrived this afternoon, showing a deep v of tanned, firm chest. His bleaches hair is starting to come out of its neatly-gelled part, strands falling into his face elegantly.

One of the women from the newest branch is wearing a little sash...it's her birthday, you assume, squinting over the rim of your glass at her. And it looks like he's in the process of buying her a drink for it.

If it was anyone else, you'd figure that they were trying to make a move, but Matthew Kim is just that nice. A little bit of a player, if memory serves, with the smooth talking and earnest extroversion, but a very sweet guy overall.

You lose track of your very hot roommate after a while.

Your boss finds you, and makes you participate in a very long toast to the success of the conference, and after that, Matthew is long gone.

It's not that birthday girl, because she's still here with her coworkers, but you assume (based on nothing, admittedly, nothing but looks) that maybe he's hunting somewhere else. He seems like he's the party type, anyway. Maybe he's going somewhere else for a second round. Who knows.

Conferences are supposed to be "fun," but you all do still have meetings in the morning. You've had about all the fun you're going to have, tonight.

You bid your coworkers a good night, and you retreat to your room.

You just want to get through this trip without anything embarrassing happening.

So, of course, you run into your very hot roommate at the elevator.

He's standing there, waiting, button already pressed, when you walk up, and he looks nothing but happy to see you.

"Oh, hey," he grins. "Goin' up?"

"I'm done for the night," you agree.

"Feel that. I wanna take a shower and crash."

You'd neglected to process, until this moment, that the two of you are sharing a shower, too.

"Yeah, I'm exhausted," you find yourself saying, anyway.

The elevator arrives with a ding, and the two of you are quiet on the ride up. Both playing with your phones, and while your calm is completely forced, his seems natural.

You go to the room in companionable silence.

But once the door is unlocked, and the two of you go in, there is one glaring problem.

"That don't look like two doubles," Matthew says.

He's right. The room that you'd been promised, a double room with two beds, instead has one luxurious queen. Your privacy and his, assured by the HR people arranging this trip, are all but gone.

The only thing your traitorous brain can think, though, is that this situation isn't half bad.

"I'll call the front desk and see wassup," Matthew says, going for the room phone.

He puts the call on speaker.

"I'm so sorry, but we're fully booked. Unless you're able to switch with other members of your booking party, there's really nothing we can offer aside from compensation after the stay..."

The concierge sounds properly apologetic in corporate, and you can't blame them for this. It is what it is.

"That's gonna be more trouble, isn't it?" Matthew asks you.

"Yeah."

"Then we'll jus' figure it out," he decides.

Figure it out.

Okay.

Figuring it out turns out to mean Matthew taking a shower, and then you taking a shower, and then both of you standing on your respective sides of the bed. The energy is indescribable.

"You sure this is okay?" he asks.

You wonder what kind of face you're making, that makes him think he has to ask that.

"As long as you're okay, too," you say.

"Can I just..."

You nod, and he peels back the duvet and makes himself comfortable. There's something kind of intimate about joining him under the covers right away, so as casually as you can, you lay on top, instead.

He doesn't comment on it. Gracefully, he just rolls over to one side and gets back on his phone until you get comfortable.

And after you've wriggled yourself into a comfy spot, he asks you, "Did you have a good time?"

"Tonight?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah, it was nice," you say. "Did you do birthday shots with what's-her-name from Chula Vista branch?"

Matthew laughs. "Just like...one."

You're not jealous, you're really not, but there's a very particular feeling under your skin that you can't shake.

"Nice."

"You coulda joined it."

You shrug. "Don't know her. It'd be weird."

"Nah."

You venture out on a limb. "I'm assuming there's no partner in the mix who's gonna get mad about you, like, buying birthday shots? And sleeping here?"

"No girlfriend," he affirms.

"A hunk like you?"

He laughs again.

The two of you aren't looking at each other, which is good, because you're audaciously embarrassed that that horrible sentence came out of your mouth. Either sentence, honestly. What business of yours is it, if he has a partner?

"Not much time," he says.

"Could have tried to bag that birthday girl," you joke.

"I think she's married," he muses. "Wouldn't be cool."

"Yeah, true."

Matthew turns to peer over his shoulder at you. "How 'bout you?"

"I'm not married," you say.

"I figured. But like...nobody back home?"

You've still been staring at your phone, until now. You glance at him.

"No."

You guys have eaten meals together maybe three times. You've gotten drunk together at least that many times. Your total time in his company is definitely less than one calendar day.

You've shared a bed, now, for about four minutes.

So the path from that to tugging Matthew on top of you and kissing him senseless is a little foggy.

He lets you, though. He laughs, a little, and he rolls easily into you, pulling the covers with him. They form a frustrating little barrier between the two of you, but that doesn't matter yet. You've got your arms around his neck, his hand planted in the mattress beside your shoulder, holding himself up as he curls around you and meets you inch for inch.

"S'goin' on?" he asks, sly.

Honesty is the best policy, you decide. "Anyone ever tell you you're super hot?"

"Maybe once or twice."

His words are cocky, but his smile is small and pleased, the genuine and slightly bashful expression of a guy who isn't used to being complimented like that.

"You should hear it more often, holy shit," you say.

He laughs again, louder.

"Would it be out of pocket to say that I'm curious what's under those lil pajamas?" he asks you.

You'd packed some demure and cozy sleepwear for this trip, normal t-shirt and long pajama pants. It seemed practical at the time, but now all you can think about is the sheer number of square inches of skin that are being cut off from touching Matthew, in his muscle tee and basketball shorts.

"You can be curious," you say. "Just depends if you're gonna do something about it."

"Ooh. You're kinda fun."

"I try."

You go for the hem of your own shirt, before he can. But he catches your wrist gently.

"Can I?"

"Of course. But you gotta make it fair," you tell him.

He strips off his own shirt before going for yours, and you're so transfixed by the sudden sight of his shredded torso - abs, pecs, lats, other things that you don't know the name of, scattered tattoos in thick ink - that you barely blink as he gets the garment off and flings it away to the room at large.

Your bottoms, and his, are lost just as quickly.

"I bet," Matthew says suddenly, halfway down your torso to do a little exploring below the waist. "Yo, I bet that the hotel staff did this on purpose."

"Did what?"

He smacks the mattress with one hand. "The bed."

You snort. "We were set up. Damn."

"Worked out kinda good for us, though."

"I'd say so."

Matthew continues his descent, telling you very seriously, "I hope these walls are kinda soundproof."

Oh, jeez. He's implying- "Why?"

"Cuz I think my boss is in the next room, and I really don't wanna have to explain this tomorrow."

[verosikastrikerstellaexcuser]

It would be so nice to know more about Stella and her daily life! She seems to care about royal duties a lot more than Stolass who uses their heirloom for prostitution. He behaves more like a rebellious teenager than even Via does. Throwing banquets and maintaining good relations with the rest of the aristocracy may seem boring or petty but is actually a hugely important part of being a member of monarchy.

The fact she is friends with some of her peers and stolas only socialises with imps who he can boss around or succubi he can take advantage of and command, says quite a lot about these two people. I know it’s meant to show how “not like other royals” stolas is. But he really isn’t. He just comes across as a chaser. If Stella was the ‘Prince’ and stolas left, she’d be in her element.

I agree! And wow yeah now that I think about it the fact Stella is able to make friends with other royals but St*las never has is, yeah that says a lot. I agree that its probably supposed to portray him as being soooooo #notlikeotherichpeople but the alternative in St*las' life has been seeking out relationships with those with less power than him by leveraging that power to force them.... sooooo yeah pretty ugly. There are nicer rich people like Ozzie in hell too. He really couldn't find any other Goetia or other elite that he could stand, at all?

I think in Stella's case shes not afraid to have relationships with those equal to and above her, which is of course largely classism on her part, but also says a cool thing about her in that shes bold. She will put herself out there. And honestly, I fail to hate her like I'm supposed to when actively seeking someone out because they're disadvantaged like St*las did is at least equally bad, imo...

I feel like seeing Via's daily life more as well as Stella's would be nice as well honestly. Both Stella and Via are so so interesting. I want to see their opinions on Stolas' work, what they want for their lives - maybe in Stella's case what she would have done with her life if not arranged married. While in Via's, how she even feels about her inheritance and the extent to which she does and doesn't know about it. I want to see Helluva Boss more through their eyes and not just St*las', they should get to be more than "St*las' wife" and "St*las' daughter".

I feel like this is a problem with the show generally in that we know the female characters like or dislike another character greatly, usually a male one. But aside from that, we see not a lot. Like what do they want out of life? Loona wants to have other hellhound friends/a social life and has a mixed relationship with Blitz, yet the focus on that has fallen to the wayside lately -_-. Millie seems to exist to be supportive and to kick ass and love Moxxie, but outside that, we so rarely hear her opinions on anything or goals she wants for herself... I really just want to actually peer into and see the female characters lives like we have gotten to with Blitz and Moxxie, so so much. Even little things like those two loving horses and musical theater, can we please have that but for our ladies?

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 07/04/2024

Mt. Dedede (extended)

Season 1 Featured on: GilvaSunner's Highest Quality Video Game Rips: Volume 7: Part mm2wood

Ripped by JJokerDude

Requested by mobbsz02! (Tumblr Askbox)

The topic of the bait-and-switch is one that comes up a lot with Season 1 posts in particular, you might've noticed. The reason, of course, is obvious - it was the foundation the channel was built on, to make bait-and-switches, yet ones that didn't leave the viewer feeling cheated or dismayed. Something like Live and Ooooooooooooooh is pretty much the perfect example of the Season 1 bait and switch, a classic video game song that many will search up for childhood nostalgia only to realize just a bit of a way in that something isn't quite right - and get a huge grin on their face when they realize just what the edit is doing. And as Season 1 developed, the metagame grew more nuanced, and we started seeing different ways to play this same game. Some like RNR (Rip No Riffs) tried to play it subtle until a very long ways into the rip, some like Be Cool, Be Wild, and Be My Girl pioneered the legendary double-switch-up to catch even seasoned viewers off guard, and some (quite controversially) just went straight for the throat and had the joke be at the viewers' expense. Yet there's one more path to the bait-and-switch that's yet to be discussed, the sneakiest of them all, and the one that Mt. Dedede (extended) employs - to have the switch be so natural, so subtle, so expected, to where the viewer may never even realize that something is wrong.

If you're, say, a casual Kirby fan seeing this post, and you put the rip on in the background while you're reading, you may not even have registered what the joke of the rip is meant to be. "It's just Mt. Dedede, it's King Dedede's theme from Kirby's Dream Land which has stayed a constant in the series since - what's so special about it here? Sure, there's four seconds of The Nutshack as the rip fades, but that's not the entire joke, right?". At least, that was what I first thought when I gave the rip a listen upon entering my submission box - I chose not to check the wiki first, and was left scratching my head just listening to the rip on its own. That's because I'd made a fatal mistake in my above-described thought process: Because although Mt. Dedede absolutely laid the *foundation* for King Dedede's theme for the series going forward, the original version of the theme is actually - and quite literally - only half the story.

Yes! Akin to something like Collision Chaos Good Future JP [CD Beta Mix], this rip is in reality a "downscaled" arrangement of King Dedede's Theme from Kirby Super Star, one that begins the same as in Mt. Dedede, yet has an entire second half to it never present in the original. The original theme was only ever present for two games with Kirby's Dream Land and Kirby's Dream Land 2, wheras the extended version from Kirby Super Star - already one of the most popular Kirby games - feels as if its appeared in just about every Kirby game since in some form, and has completely eclipsed the original as a result. I, and likely many others, weren't even aware that the theme ever WAS as short as it was in those first two Dream Land games, a notion that JJokerDude just helps to sell with how inexplicably seamless his edit is with Mt. Dedede (extended).

The Mt. Dedede rip has racked up a ton of views, and I wonder how many of those genuinely aren't aware that they technically got tricked, "technically", because really nothing about the joke here betrays what your expectations would be going in. Unlike almost everything else on the channel, this is the kind of rip that its entirely possible to walk away from without ever realizing something is wrong - fuel for a fake Mandela effect, in a way! Rips of this kind are obviously far less common to see than the more explosive or blatant kind, mainly because its required scenario is a lot more specific (to have a theme that got extended in later iterations to begin with), but they do still show up from time to time! That lack of explosiveness means that they often get buried quite a lot of the time, yet that shouldn't take away from how genuinely neat they are to listen to, like getting to finally complete a puzzle left sitting in your mind - the answer to a question you hadn't really asked yet were always passively wondering about. Mt. Dedede (extended) is EXACTLY what it says on the tin, likely tricked a lot of people without even realizing it, and is part of perhaps the least explored avenue for bait-and-switching, and I think that's just pretty cool.

[anarcho-physicist]

Squishy Stuff, Symmetries, & Why '3 States of Matter' is a Lie [PART 1]

Hi! I'm new to tumblr, I migrated over here from reddit with r/196. I didn't post much there, but this seems like a good place to talk about the things I'm interested in. So I'm gonna do that. This is going to be a two-part post (since it’s turning out to be pretty long) about what soft matter (or, affectionately, squishy stuff) is, why the traditional picture of classifying matter into solid/liquid/gas is woefully incomplete, and how you should really think about phases of matter. In my next post after these first two, I’ll show a bunch of cool pictures of soft matter systems, and I’ll talk a little bit about what I’m planning to share in the future. But for now, I would like to explain why I think this criminally under-communicated field of physics is the coolest thing in the universe.

So I'm a PhD candidate studying theoretical soft condensed matter physics, which basically means I think weird phases of matter are cool as hell. Remember that scene from spongebob squarepants where spongebob and patrick are looking at weird squishy organ thing and say something like "it's a liquid!" "no it's a solid it's a solid!" "it's a lolsquid!"? That scene pretty much perfectly defines the subject of the field of soft matter. Like many things in life, we're taught in school to fit phases of matter into neat little binary categories. You have solids which are generally rigid and don't flow, and the science-class explanation for why is because all of the solid's constituent atoms/molecules/particles are locked in-place, either in a regular, periodic lattice if it's a crystal, or in some kind of random, disordered arrangement if it's an amorphous material like glass. Then you have liquids, which do flow to fill their containers, but don’t expand outwards into the air, which is explained as the constituent particles being densely packed together due to some form of attractive forces between them, but free to jiggle around and move past one another. And finally there are gasses, which flow and expand to fill their containers completely, due to the constituent particles having overcome these attractive interactions and moving freely through space, only occasionally colliding with other particles. If you were a nerdy kid like me, you may also have heard of things like plasma and Bose-Einstein condensates, expanding those 3 categories into more like 5 or 6.

Coming up with this picture, explaining the coarse-grained, macroscopic behavior of the universe we live in in terms of these microscopic models, is one of the greatest accomplishments of the last couple centuries of physics. But if you start to think too hard about it, to pay too much attention to the world around you, you’ll start to notice some cracks in the picture. A common first exposure to one of these cracks occurs when you mix cornstarch with water to make "oobleck". This curious substance will flow slowly to fill its container, but if you hit it with a hammer, it’ll feel like a solid, even fracturing like a solid before flowing back to fill in its cracks. You can even walk on it (if you walk fast enough).

Another, similar example is silly putty. You can roll it up into a ball and throw it against a wall, and it’ll bounce back just like a solid. But if you leave a glob of silly putty on a ledge and walk away for a few minutes, by the time you get back you’ll have a mess on the floor.

So we have these cute little examples of weird materials that do weird things, and if we ask our science teachers where they fit into this picture, they’ll say something about “non-Newtonian fluids”, which makes them sound like they should fit into some subcategory of liquid. But maybe you don’t worry too much about it too much, because how often do we really encounter oobleck and silly putty in day-to-day life anyway? So you add a little subcategory to the “liquids” bin in your mental picture of how matter works, and move on with your life. And then you learn about rubber.

From the perspective of a theoretical physicist, rubber is a remarkable material. From a macroscopic point of view, it’s clearly a solid. It doesn’t flow, and it’s not as rigid as, say, a crystal, but it does behave elastically, pushing back on you if you push on it. And yet, if you zoom way in on rubber and look at its microscopic structure and dynamics on the scale of a few molecules, it’s indistinguishable from a liquid. Molecules are not locked into rigid positions, they’re constantly jiggling and flowing around each other. So what the hell is going on here? 

The physical origins of rubber’s elasticity is a fascinating topic that I will certainly discuss in more mathematical detail at some point (spoiler: unlike crystal elasticity which comes from energy, i.e. electrically charged particles pushing on each other, rubber elasticity comes from entropy), but the important takeaway for now is that, unlike in crystals and “simple” fluids, you can’t predict the macroscopic behavior from the microscopic scale. If you really want to understand rubber, silly putty, or oobleck, there’s a third length scale in between the two that’s really important: the mesoscopic. The macroscopic properties of these materials arise from structures which are much larger than the individual atoms & molecules the material is made of, but much smaller than the material itself. In fact, the only physical thing that differentiates oobleck from silly putty from rubber are small differences in these mesoscopic structures. 

This is again something that deserves its own post, but all three of these materials are made up of very long, wiggly molecules called polymers. Physicists aren’t too interested in the chemical makeup of these polymers since they all roughly obey the same mathematics, so we essentially think of them as tiny pieces of spaghetti which are wiggling around due to being constantly buffeted by other molecules. Oobleck is essentially just a whole bunch of these polymers dissolved in water at high density. If you use a probe to push slowly on a bit of oobleck, the polymers can slowly, thermally jiggle out of the way of the probe, flowing viscously like a liquid. But if you push too fast, the polymers will push back, primarily due to a really fascinating effect known as entropic elasticity. This explains the “non-Newtonian” (or more specifically “viscoelastic”) behavior of oobleck, but what about silly putty and rubber? To understand their behavior, imagine you have a big bowl of these spaghetti molecules, and you start tying them together, crosslinking two at a time. In actual materials, these crosslinks are formed by some chemical which is able to bond two different polymers together at a point. Then, push or pull on one of the pieces of spaghetti. The more you increase the number of crosslinks, the more likely you are to drag other pieces along with it. The more crosslinks you have, the more rigid and brittle the overall piece of matter behaves. This is the fundamental difference between oobleck, silly putty, and rubber: the density of crosslinks. 

But if you tried to predict this macro-scale behavior by looking at the micro-scale phenomena of individual molecules, you’d fail completely, because even in rubber which has the highest density of crosslinks of our three examples, these crosslinks occur only once every few dozen to every few thousand molecules. They are separated by meso-scale distances. Tiny changes in the density of crosslinkers can have huge effects on the overall macroscopic properties of the material, and the only way to understand this is by modeling the physics of these meso-scale structures. Our traditional classification scheme of solid, liquid, or gas makes reference only to micro-scale behavior in explaining the macro-scale, and thus is utterly incapable of describing polymeric materials like oobleck, silly putty and rubber. 

So at this point, if you’re like me, learning this kind of blows your mind a little bit, maybe even makes you a little bit paranoid. What other states of matter have they been lying to us about? You start to look around more closely at the world around you, what it’s really made of. Is peanut butter a solid or a liquid? What about toothpaste? What about me? If I flex a muscle and poke it, it feels rigid like a solid, but if I relax that muscle and do the same, it flows more easily around my finger. Does my body undergo a phase transition every time I use a muscle? What even counts as a phase of matter anyway? If I look up at a big murmation of starlings flocking together in the sky and squint my eyes a little bit, it almost looks like a big droplet of a very weird fluid. Does that count as a phase of matter?

After I started thinking more deeply about what the hell all this stuff we’re made of is, I couldn’t stop. It seems almost ridiculous to me that it’s possible for all of the natural world’s complexity to exist at all, so it’s become my life’s obsession to try to understand some of the fundamental, mathematical structures behind it. Which is why I’m currently working towards my PhD in soft matter physics. Since I started this journey I’ve learned a lot of very cool stuff about the structure of matter, and I think a lot of other people might find this stuff really cool too, so I’m gonna try my best to explain it, which I think will help me understand it even better. Please feel free to ask questions!

In part 2, I’m going to explain a better way to think about phases of matter: in terms of symmetries. I’ll also talk a bit more precisely about what I mean by the term “soft matter”, and why I think it’s the coolest, most exciting field of physics.

[purity-town]

Ask responses are typed up & under the cut!

I'm happy I was able to work in some more of the NPCs even if it was just into the background, so I'm glad you're liking seeing them. And yes! I don't have specific measurements on anyone's heights beyond a vague “X is taller than Y,” but she's the tallest member of the cast, all divinity and ancient magics and humanoid-but-not-human. And thanks for reading; I'm glad you're excited for the next chapter!

Andrew much prefers to deflect over lying outright, but if pressed claims to be 26 with a summer birthday (putting him as “29” in the comic now as he's lived in town for 3 years). Mid-twenties roughly aligns with his physical age, as he slowed and eventually stopped aging around that point, so people don't have any obvious reason not to believe it.

In the past, Andrew usually just moved around every long while, assuming things were otherwise peaceful. The jump from “this guy is weird and aging gracefully” to “this is an immortal being inextricably tied to this world and its fate” is quite large, especially since Andrew mostly kept to himself.

Living in Purity Town is a first in many ways for him, particularly in that he's serving an actual purpose to the town and has to both interact with people and stick around for the foreseeable future. Under normal circumstances he would absolutely gracefully arrange his leave, but then once you throw the hero being present into the mix things just get messy.

Honestly, with enough time he probably would come clean to the townsfolk. If he explained it to Chris delicately enough initially, Chris (and Alalia!) would eventually back him up and that'd likely do a lot to sway folks. Between their input and him having just…been around town long enough to show that he’s not a bad person and actually form some relationships, I think it would go okay.

Thank you!!! I'm glad you're liking the comic so much!

Honestly, I have no idea! It's probably a combination of factors in my art style (like my tendency to use solid/clean lines and keep painted portions to the background) playing nice with however Tumblr crunches images. I know that Webtoons struggles a good bit more with my pages due to color/resolution limitations, but Tumblr’s always been pretty good with it. That's all just a rough guess though; I couldn't find your art on your blog to examine so I'm just throwing out ideas!

Possibly relevant, each page is 2320x3587 pixels (350 dpi) after I trim the edges and export it as a .png. Downloading pages from Tumblr saves them as a 1987x3072 (72 dpi) jpeg, but preserves the fine details pretty well. So that’s what we’re working with here!

(Interestingly, after some testing I found that Reddit preserves the higher resolution of pages, but crunches their colors around areas of shading, while Tumblr smoothly fuzzes them when it downscales.)

I'm happy to see more folks caught what I was going for there! I didn't draw much of her shimmered design since she's mostly covered and under some heavy effects, but it was cool to work with. Here's a snippet of her shimmered design in that panel without the effects, since I had it on hand already from a comment a while back.

Thank you!! It feels crazy to me that it's been going on so long, but I'm really happy to have continued with the comic for so long. I'm also happy to be done with college, haha -- I’m liking my new job a lot more than the school grind!

Thank you so much for this!! It’s super touching that you’ve stuck around so long -- I definitely recognize the folks I’ve seen popping up in my notifications over the years, and I’m really glad that people are liking being along for the ride. I’ve learned so much through working on this comic and I’m really really happy that other people are enjoying it too, because I love these characters and this world and this game so so much.

I’m not articulating this well but- thank you for this! I hope that whoever you are, you’re doing well, too :)

Go right ahead! Though this serves as a reminder to myself to make sure that all of the pages on the various sites are all updated, since I usually go back through after a chapter is done to correct little errors, haha.

I totally understand if you want to remain anonymous, but if you need files or anything give a shout here or on Discord (@ariibees)! Purity Town is somewhat formatted for print by virtue of having pages instead of vertical-scrolling but I know that the chapters are kinda short and pages would probably need to be re-formatted around the edges to fit book binding.

All that said -- if you end up going through with it it'd be insanely cool to see how it turns out, if you're comfortable with sharing!

Chapter titles are done in Albertus Medium (with the exception of the "Purity Town" text and character intro bubbles, which is in the Terraria font Andy Bold). Speech bubbles use Segoe Print. There's not really any concrete reasoning behind the fonts I picked (beyond the obvious choice to use the Terraria font), I just chose ones that looked good enough, haha.

[pleuvoire]

ok here are my opinions on some common patterns in conway’s game of life that i am always seeing pop up in my experiments

1. blinker

i do not like these very much. they are distracting when i see them littered around a still life and if i have ash of some kind i want to fuck with i usually just put dots on either side to stabilize them into a tub so their movement will stop catching my eye

2. traffic light

this is just an arrangement of blinkers so you can imagine my feelings. often a pattern will do something very pretty with fourfold symmetry but then just stabilize into one of these which is disappointing cause it’s the most boring constellation result you can get. i think traffic lights should be a less common result in this thing :/

3. honey farm

not the most interesting but has its own aesthetic qualities, it looks like a decorative embroidery pattern, so i support it and i’m like omg hi it’s a honey farm when they show up. and the process to generate one, while modest and not as fancy as some other formations like the pi heptomino, is still really pretty and often provides a gorgeous bit of symmetry among the chaos (for an example of what it looks like go to https://playgameoflife.com/ and make a line exactly seven squares long and press start). she is like a simple homespun beauty to me

4. glider

MY DEAR LITTLE FRIENDS. i just made a post about it but they are like animals to me. just look at it. just look at it! i’m so pleased that they are so commonly generated by random processes because they are so cute and my friends. when they pop up inside a bunch of stuff going on i am rooting for them to escape without any fatal collisions and continue to make their way into the great unknown. they are not the only spaceship (shape that moves itself across the grid indefinitely) but they are by far the simplest, most common, and above all the most endearing

5. pi heptomino

UGH I LOVE YOU. YOUR INTRICATE SYMMETRICAL BEAUTY IS MATCHED ONLY BY HOW EASY IT IS TO RANDOMLY GENERATE YOU SO I AM OFTEN GREETED BY YOUR ICONIC FIRST FEW STAGES BEAUTIFULLY BLOSSOMING FROM WITHIN CHAOS. she’s everything she is the moment. every way she interacts with her surroundings is going to look good as well. we have no choice but to stan. there is a beautiful tragedy in the way she generates a copy of herself (you can see in the animation before it gets prematurely cut off) but that copy will eventually be destroyed by all the other stuff unless you hassle the exhaust with blocks. tragic. but lots of potential applications for spaceship building!

6. line of six spark

(i can’t find a good gif so here’s a link to the wiki with an animation of it) if you’re going to go out do it in style. nothing special, a modest little thing, but it’s fun and unique to look at. i always like to see one of these appearing in my soups

7. phi spark

(same as above) it’s a lot like the line of six spark but twice as awesome because it REMINDS ME OF MY DEAR FRIEND TAKUMI :D and the distinctive ɸ shape is just so visually pleasing to suddenly see for an instant

8. r pentomino

kinda mixed feelings. on the one hand, her absolute slay in taking over a THOUSAND generations to stabilize (this gif is only a brief snapshot) after coming from that one little shape. on the other hand, i’m too impatient to wait that long. also i resent her taking the title of most commonly occurring methuselah (pattern that originates from a small seed but lasts a long time before stabilizing) from my lovely girlfriend the pi heptomino. also she’s not symmetrical so it’s not as nice to look at :/ which also means i can’t actually recognize any of these supposed common occurrences because there aren’t distinctive patterns for me to notice. oh well. nothing personal

9. toad

not huge on my radar compared to some of these others but the name makes it so cute, the way it looks is a lot more interesting despite its simplicity than my enemy the blinker, and it’s not as common a result so i when i get it i’m like omg it’s a toad :D also i hear they’re very useful in lots of spaceships and machines and stuff

ok that concludes my post about my thoughts on some common naturally occurring patterns from conway’s game of life that i am always seeing in my random soups. next i might do a post on some patterns that don’t occur naturally so much and that you have to manually input to see happen. if you actually read this far congratulations and thank you

[polyamorousmood]

My partner and i recently had a talk about polyamory stuff and like, we both agree that its just the thing for us. So some time they told me they had a requited crush, but of course thry wanted to ask me if its ok first and all that, which i said yes to because it really genuinely is!

But, i do get a little bit jealous and stuff, do you know like, ways to deal with it? Im sorry if this isnt the right spot to ask, im just a lil new to some of this and i also talked to them about my being a bit jealous sometimes, but im also afraid of coming off as like, pushy and whiny

Oh my gosh I'm so happy for all three of you! 🥰 And I'm sure you're really happy for your partner, but its still a big step, especially the first time! Its totally okay for you to have some mixed feelings and take some time to figure things out in a way that works for you all 💟

I do have some ways to help deal with jealousy I've found, and I encourage followers to weigh in too. Buckle up, cause I give long answers😅

Talk about it.🗣️ And you did! So you're already doing good! This is really stock advice, you'll hear it from any poly person you talk to, but that's because it really is that important. I feel like sometimes we just say "talk about it" as though that'll solve the problem though. It won't always solve the problem. Don't expect it to 100% solve it. There's more to it than just talking. I have a lot of thoughts on how to talk about things productively, so those will go below the cut.

Know your feelings really well.🧠 Metaphorically engage with them as you would a cat that doesn't know whether to trust you yet: be gentle, be curious, don't get upset with them for not reacting how you'd like. Try to observe the feeling from an outside perspective rather than sitting in the feeling and reacting to it. There's a lot of information on being mindful of your feelings available with a quick google, so I won't go into it any further than that, but you have to really know your feelings to be able to talk about them and to be able to know what exactly you need to work on (and what you may need to ask of your partner).

Be okay with feeling unpleasant feelings sometimes.😕 That's a lot easier said than done, and it'll take some practice. Over little twinges of jealousy, practice saying "ah, that's not nice. But no biggie. 🤷" and moving on. For bigger bouts of jealousy, it'll be harder, but the same method of acknowledging how you're feeling but not letting it rule you is still helpful. On that note..

Practice self-soothing.🌱 Your partner should be willing to help you with your emotions, but they are, at the end of the day, your responsibility. Say to yourself, out loud if you need to, what the "problem" is and an affirmation for yourself: "I am feeling jealous because they're having fun with [crush] without me, but they still love me and want to hang out with me, too." Say it a few times. Depending on how much it bothers you, it may help you to make a list of things that are special between you and your partner, or a collection of affection your partner has expressed to you for you to review when you're upset by your jealousy.

Distract yourself.🤹 Of course you're gonna feel like shit if your partner is out bowling and making out with someone but you're sitting at home, staring at the wall, feeling sorry for yourself and waiting for them to come back. Do a hobby, arrange to see friends at the same time, treat yourself to a dinner you like but you rarely have because your partner hates it, try something new. Make it into a positive time for you too.

Get reasonable accommodations from your partner.🤝 This will tie closely into talking it out, and this is harder to give definitives on because so much is going to hinge on what your partner is comfortable with and what exactly your situation is, but its totally fair of you to at least ask certain things not get mentioned if you know they'll make you more jealous than you can handle, for example, or you can ask for occasional reassurance they don't want to de-escalate the relationship. Your partner may not be able/willing to make every accommodation you ask for

With that in mind, back to talking about talking

"Talk about it" is near-useless advice if the conversation isn't mutually respectful and productive. What that looks like for you and your partner, you know better than I do, so please remember this is general advice and may need a good bit of tweaking to fit in your relationship. But in general, when I say "talk things through with your partner," that includes:

You and your partner should both enter the discussion from a place of non-judgement and (unless someone has crossed a previously established boundary) non-blame.

You and your partner should both understand what is happening with the discussion. Do you want to explore solutions, ask for a change, or just vent?

Part of that understanding, in a healthy relationship, will be that its you and your partner vs the problem, not you vs them.

Things should be allowed to change. Your feelings and the situation will evolve. You both need to be allowed to say "I thought this would work, but it isn't, I need to revisit this."

Not hiding shit. Even if you're not sure how you feel or what you need, say that.

Self-awareness enough to have that conversation while adhering to all the other points. Being about to say things like "I know this isn't what you're meaning, but I feel like..." or "I understood it this way, was I mistaken" instead of shit like "You make me feel" or "That's not what you said before." Classify your emotions appropriately.

Classifying your emotions appropriately. Ties in with the previous point, but don't let knee-jerk reactions dominate your end of things. Don't let your partner's knee-jerk reactions get to you more than they should.

Assumption of good faith. Get used to saying "Can you clarify what you mean by that/why you think that?" Literally. Say it 10 times aloud right now. Miscommunications happen. If your partner says something wildly out of character or hurtful, take a breath, assume there's a misunderstanding, clarify that misunderstanding. If you sincerely believe your partner would try to fuck you over in anything, leave them now. If you don't believe that, don't act like you'd think that when things get tough

Hear each other out. Self-explanatory, ties in with several other points, important enough to mention again.

And of course, all of these things go both ways. No matter how well you handle things, if your partner isn't assuming good faith, you can only get so far, and vice-versa.

That's a lot, so you can see how its easy to breeze past that and just say "talk it through." It sounds like you and your partner have a pretty solid foundation in most if not all of these (at least I hope so!💖), so hopefully some of those feel obvious, but not everyone has that! Some people "talk about things" by playing the blame game and then are confused why nothing improves, so I wanted to cover my basics.

So what does that look like in practice? Well, tumblr ask limitations mean I don't know enough about your relationship dynamic or what's bothering you to say with certainty, so I'm going to make up a more specific example based on what I got, and trust you to translate it as you see fit to your life 👍Okay cool

In this scenario, you've gotten used to spending most of your time with your partner by default. So you've already told your partner you're feeling jealous (again, that's really good!) Hopefully they reassured you they love you and stuff. After examining your feelings for a bit, you determine that while you're happy your partner is happy with this new person, you're jealous of that new relationship energy and feeling sidelined. Its hard to be away from your partner, and you dislike how much time they spend texting their crush even when its just the two of you.

You go to your partner and say, "I'm really happy you and your crush seem to be going well, but I am struggling with getting less of your attention. I'd like to discuss what we can do to make this easier on me." Partner: Yeah, of course, what's up? You: I got really used to doing everything with you, so its a hard adjustment having you away. I think it'll be easier if I have something to do while you're out, so I was thinking about trying to set up a weekly board game night with [group of friends], and hopefully that could be 'you guys's time'. Your partner takes a second to process what you said, before explaining "Crush's work schedule isn't consistent enough to commit for sure to one day a week, and if things keep going well I'll probably want to see them more than that anyway. Having said that, I'm happy to make that Crush's and I's date night when the scheduling works out, but I still want to see them when it doesn't." You nod, that's disappointing but it makes sense. "Yeah, okay. When I talk to [friends], I'll ask about making it a floating game night and maybe we can all schedule together if that's okay?" Partner: Yeah, if your friends can be flexible, that's fine with me, but if that doesn't work out, I still want to be able to see Crush on my own terms. You: That's fair. I think it will still help even if it only works out half the time anyway. Can we give it a few weeks and see how it goes and check back in? Partner: Yeah, sure. Thanks for talking to me about things You: There's one more thing, too. I'm really glad you're so invested in Crush and that you feel comfortable enough in our relationship to text them around me, but it can be a bit much sometimes. I'm not really sure how to fix it because I don't feel its fair of me to be able to demand you stop talking to them whenever I want, but I don't think I can handle it all the time either. Your partner doesn't have an answer either, and you both agree to give it some more thought and come back to it later. After a couple days your partner asks, "Would it help if we have some time set aside that's just for us? Where I don't text Crush and we watch a movie or something?" You: yeah, that sounds really nice... I think that'd be a big relief to me and help me feel special and important to you. Which I know I am, but like, it'd help me feel it more. How often would you be willing to do that? Partner: [thinks a minute] Once a week sounds fair? That's how often I'm having special time with Crush, too. You: That is fair, but... :/ I had hoped to be a little bit higher priority than Crush still. Could I at least be able to like, ask for your attention outside of that time for even just for like 15-20 minutes when its really bothering me? Partner: You knew I didn't really want to prioritize my relationships formally, plus, I thought we agreed it wasn't fair for you to tell me to stop just whenever? That's not really what you had meant, and you ask your partner for a second to collect your thoughts before saying, "I don't want to be able to do it all the time, I just-- If I need to talk to you about something really important or I'm having a really hard day and need some extra affection, I just want to be sure that's not going to cause problems." Partner: Have I not been doing a good job of that anyway? I had my phone away when you were talking about that stuff with your family the other day. Like, I still care about you, and I'm not going to be texting them while you're having a breakdown. You: You know, yeah, you have, sorry. I think that was just an anxiety creeping up on me. Thank you for pointing out it wasn't a reasonable one. And then you kiss!!1!

That last step isn't necessary, but its nice, in my experience. Obviously, this isn't going to be the whole picture. You'll see how you and your partner feels after you implement the changes. And of course, there are a lot of other solutions everyone could have come to and a lot of reactions there could have been.

I want to draw attention to some of the ways some of the numbered items earlier got implemented, just so we're extra clear. You started the conversation by establishing clear expectations on what was happening, and made it clear you didn't blame them for your feelings and were wiling to contribute to a solution (Note: in a relationship where this is common, less formal check-ins probably don't require so much of a disclaimer, but I think its good practice to still do when you're doing A Big Thing). Your partner also didn’t blame you for getting jealous, while still not compromising on things that were important to them. You allowed for the fact you weren't certain how things would make you feel and future adjustments might be necessary when you agreed to check in after a few weeks. Both partners took time to think things over when needed to avoid knee-jerk reactions. You classified emotions appropriately by realizing something at the end was a baseless anxiety instead of an actual problem.

Wow this got long! If you’re still around, I hope this was helpful! 😆 Feel free to send follow up questions if you have them, and let me know how it works out!

[perfectlovepoison]

thots on the new junjou mix chapter (tero part)

spoilers below obviously

but first of all a summary of the tero part if anyone is interested.

this is a pretty simple chapter. it starts off with the dean saying to miyagi that he’d like to set him up with another woman (i.e. a miai, arranged marriage type thing). miyagi manages to decline him.

miyagi "I thought this would happen eventually..." -> yes, so did the readers

later on miyagi comes home and shinobu is mad with him because he heard about the miai from risako. (cue miyagi thinking: damn it risako!) miyagi clarifies that he declined and shinobu quickly calms down.

angery

shinobu mentions that he has always talked about not caring about what others think, but he also doesn’t want to be the one dragging miyagi down. miyagi says, you really love me a lot, huh. shinobu says, is it a problem if i do?

cue the shortest sex scene known to man (ahem but i’m happy it was included, bc recently there hasn’t been one for them)

like how does he carry him like this? miyagi is actually so strong

finally, afterwards, whilst shinobu is wrapped up in a blanket, he talks about how he hates beating around the bush like this, and declares that in order to get rid of this stress, he will just tell his father about their relationship.

cue miyagi going waaaait waaaait let’s slow down and discuss this first!!!! and gag end.

"I thought there were some things that you can't tell your parents. But actually, there are things that you have to tell them, because they're your parents"

Miyagi: Nnnnn?

***

my thoughts: first of all, i was just expecting some fluff so when i turned the page and the dean was there, i was like oh?!?!?!?

and then it was the arranged marriage plotline and i was like There It Is, tero finally gets their version of this plotline lmao

but it was also quashed very quickly, shinobu’s temper is basically played for laughs at this point, he’s too mature now for it to actually be a big deal. like, he knows there’s no way in hell that miyagi would actually do it. but he seems somewhat frustrated by the situation. like, we know that if they keep it a secret, they have to keep dealing with stuff like this forever (i'm like.....shinobu could be next for a miai since his father likes setting people up so much?!?!? lol)

although i dont believe that we’re immediately going to go into tero plot from the next issue (i mean i would be VERY happy if we did but…) i feel like this is kind of a flag for where the story will lead. the dean (and risako, etc?) will find out about them in the end - tbh i think it will end up being by accident before they have a chance to tell him, because nakamura sensei loves the drama, but either way…

this short chapter ended up having really big implications bc even if shinobu doesn’t reveal their relationship right away, we know his intentions now. it kinda sets the pace for the future. and its very shinobu-like to be like, this is how it is now deal with it!!!

in fact this chapter really called back to the terrorist chapter where miyagi was worried about holding shinobu back and being a burden to him, but interestingly the difference is that miyagi just worries about it all internally and is like 'should i break up with him for his own good...?' meanwhile shinobu is like 'i acknowledge the burden i am causing you but i will never break up with you' (isn't it good he's so open huuhu)

tbh, i was also really amused that the dean was trying to set miyagi up with a new person. i thought we might be leading into more of a plot where risako wants to remarry, but, not even her own father is on her side with that one lol. it’s kind of funny how involved he wants to be in miyagi’s love life. it does feel almost paternal (in a kind of meddling parent kind of way lol)

also that shinobu and risako are on good terms enough to be communicating with each other on stuff like this. is risako just like hey!!!!! did you know miyagi is going to a miai??? and shinobu is like whaaaat?????

at the same time, since risako still seems to have an interest in miyagi, she might also try to get some info from shinobu since she knows they’re living together. (though i kinda doubt that shinobu says much. i mean it already takes a lot for miyagi to get information from him lmao. imagine risako trying to find out anything)

so much food for thought just from one chapter. i really wasnt expecting it at all. i still have so many thoughts. it really reminded me why i love shinobu as a character. how did he go from seeming like the most unhinged character to seeming like the most reasonable one? he is selfish but he completely owns it. i really love him a lot.

i'm still waiting for miyagi's birthday btw

and, romantica and egoist were also cute. usagi’s picture book was a collab with yukina which is a fun bonus. they were good. (my comments are so short dgfjgdkjf)

i was surprised that there was no junjou mistake, i'm assuming because there was already umi ni nemuru hana & sekakoi & junjou mix which is already a lot of things to be dealing with but yeah. if there turned out to be a mix chapter with no terrorist i would be sad so i was like...oh

also shinobu wrapped up in a blanket (or towel? but looks more like a blanket) has improved my life

[nicegaai]

having nor/ice thoughtssssssssssssss sad sad whiny kitty cat noises. wahhhh. im thinking about them wahhhhhhhh. WAHHH

what if i took all my small canonverse ideas and compiled them into ONESHOTSSSSS........................................ and what if they were CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED ..... and showed RELATIONSHIP PROGRESSION over the course of 1000 years ...... and it wasnt that deep but i pretended it was and called it something like "i was meant to keep you warm" because i love to steal fox/i/ng lyrics. maybe even id find a way to make this a 5 times + 1 time format.

if i can wrestle my way into figuring out what goes on in nors head i could do it. ive figured that i want ice to never ever see him as a brother. my vision is that nor is iceladns hot babysitter fantasy and first crush that never goes away. he wants to marry him when he grows up but then his feelings stay that way and it never ever ever ever ever goes away and only gets worse. u understand? do u see it

and UNFORTUNATELY nor knows ic/eland likes him from the beginning. he can tell from like ice's adolescence onwards and is like yeah idk about all that...... but the attention is flattering and he loves this little guy so much and thinks its sweet. he doesnt get to visit often but ice writes him a lot because hes in love with him ykwim and nor loves him so much too (platonic) and always writes back.

and yeah they go through periods of living together for various reasons. sickness unions famines etc etc. not ever for long and nothing ever happens. if adolescent iceland pushed boundaries, nor would humor him a little with like...a kiss, bc he spoils him, but ultimately he hard-shuts it down. and ice would be traumatized forever and block the memory out / be eternally tormented at night by the time he did such and such so is the worst person alive etc

and ice begins teen life with the whole he will never love me and i am a tormented soul shtick. now he writes to him less, tries to put more distance between them... so it hurts less and all that. hes not GOOD at pretending he hates nor or whatever but its easy to lose connection when messages are rare and visits are rarer

he spends much more time at denmarks than with no.rway. he sees den.mark as a proper older brother / uncle / fatherly figure. hes closer emotionally to him and lives with him more and all that. his tutors are danish and he goes to boarding school in cop.enhagen in the 1800s. idk how this ties into the romance necessarily but its timeline relevant. whether or not denmark picks up on the crush , i dont know. i could go either way lol. also, den + nors relationship is strictly brotherly btw. ironically. because theres not enough fics where theyre platonic and i really do enjoy them that way too

nor and ice remain distant for several hundred years. its once ice gets into his pushing for independence mixed with modern technology for better communication ..... somewhere between say, the invention of the airplane and landline phones, nor and ice repair their relationship. iceland is coming into adulthood (independence) for real, and is SO mature about his international relationships. he can be so mature and normal about norway. he can sit down with him and have lunch and discuss business and norway wont talk down at him for being young at all (lie) and he'll be so chill about that and not yell at him (he only does it once) (he only has to do it once)

all this isnt to say n.orway himself didnt attempt to stay close over the years, but ic.eland wasnt reciprocating, and even if they saw each other every year at christmas (doubt) that doesnt make them really CLOSE. but i think iceland was always particularly special to him bc of how close they were as kids. and they WERE both kids back then. little icela.nd sent him letters while nor was like 14 at best. i believe in teen mom norway and his eldest sondaughter icey. at least from nors perspective. even tho hes so absent so much of the time. when he comes around he showers him in gifts as a love language even way back when

anyway, ice.land still has an obvious crush on nor and nor finds it SO cute. like he could just pinch his cheeks and coo at him for it. ice tries to keep a lid on his emotions but can only do so much. nor doesnt SAY anything to point sus behavior out. but as soon as he notices,,,, its like there was no time apart, to nor. ice is so closed off and stiff and weird around him and nor wishes he would relax so they can connect properly and he honestly CANT

the solution is to drink otgether i think. at some point. maybe not immediately but they'll get to it.

icela.nd isnt like oohg im too young to drink, i think hes just lived long enough that hes a bit Over It / doesnt want to act like an idiot / really doesnt want to act like an idiot in front of nor. but nor could peer pressure him into anything if he really tried so they finally get tipsy together and i think that goes a long way to repair their relationship.

they do this many times and as long as ice is careful to not drink a lot he'll be fine. hes gotta keep his wits about him and still be able to feel shame. one time he indulges a little hard and i think ice trauma dumps on him and they kiss to make up for the time nor pushed him away and nor didnt realize he was still hurting so much about that. nor is tipsy enough to do it (not even drunk) and afterwards he goes ohh wait i kind of enjoyed that. and do it a few more times then make out for a while and it doesnt go anywhere, they fall asleep

the next day they completely remember kissing and know the other remembers it and just mutually dont talk about it.

icelan.d is VISIBLY struggling even harder around him for at least a few days until he gets a handle on his emotions. and nor has a lot to think about. in general.

i dont know where the dna stuff comes in. im falling asleep while typeing this

but icelan.d obvioiusly is like wtf? we arent related. thats impossible. i cant even fathom this. and nor.way is like you are the closest i will ever have to family and i am your biological father and icel.and is like what the fuck ew you can say brother as much as you want but never say father again im begging you and nor is like Bet.

and then they test and they're first degree related. father or brother would be appropriate. and nor is like yeah obviously (already believed this when he kissed him) and ic.eland is like (max harlow voice) SUICIDE !! SUICIDE !!

icelan.d sits with that information for a while but his crush still doesnt go away. nor gives him space and also sits with the information. he never thought he'd end up here but he decides that hes into it. its kinda hot. I Do believe in slutty n.orway supremacy i thnk hes slept with most of europe and doesnt have a strong internal sense of familial boundaries considering he is a landmass and is like yeah id do that again we're both adults hes cute whatever

next time they see each other nor comes onto him. and ice is squeemish about it but this is also everything hes ever wanted. whats he gonna do, say no?

at this point i fell asleep but im awake again uhhhh

ic.eland gets to cope with being a creep a weirdo and getting what he wanted in the worst way possible and nor gets to torment him with the brother thing not as a kink but bcz it makes him uncomfortable and he thinks its funny.

i forgot to talk about the actual oneshot ideas that inspired this in the first place didnt i. oh well

aaaaaaaaaaaaand post

[two-hands-toward-the-sun]

Writing Patterns

Rules: Share the opening of your last ten published works or as many as you are able and see if there are any patterns!

Thank you for the tag @tryan-a-bex!!

Going from oldest to most recent because I had already scrolled back ten fics to count them off, and I don’t feel like scrolling back up to the top again lol

10. i am singing now while rome burns

What power would Hell have if those here imprisoned were not able to dream of Heaven?

The Dream Lord’s words still pounding within her head, Mazikeen watches as he strides out of the palace, satisfaction burning from each line of his body, bright even among the fires of Hell. Defeat stings all along Mazikeen’s skin.

9. the boy in his deathless arms

The first stormclouds roll in at dusk.

Eyes narrowed against the rising wind, Dream stares at the horizon. He stands up and brushes the grass and dust from his robes. “Orpheus,” he calls. “Come to me.”

8. sister, hold me close (us despite it all)

The heat wraps itself round Calliope’s shoulders, soft and downy against her skin. In time, she knows it will become the irritation she remembers it being, but for the time being it feels like it is welcoming her back.

7. come my way and stay, my honey

In hindsight, Lucienne will reflect, it couldn’t have happened in any place but her library.

It wasn’t a spectacular, radiant revelation, descending on her head like a ball of fire. It was like waking to the sunrise resting gentle hands on your windowpane.

6. rip my ribcage open and devour what’s truly yours

“I’m still angry,” Crowley hisses against Aziraphale’s mouth. “This doesn’t mean I’m okay with what you did, and it doesn’t mean I for—fuck,” and he can’t say it, he cannot say that word, not now and not here and not with Aziraphale. He drops his forehead against Aziraphale’s collarbone, his breath coming in harsh gasps.

5. united in kiss and weep

“Gault—Gault—”

“Shhh.” Gault presses a kiss against Lucienne’s spine, and the other woman arches back into the touch. Lucienne’s shoulder blades shine with sweat. Gault trails her free hand over the slick skin, thinking about the wings Lucienne always has when Gault pictures her in her mind’s eye.

4. fly you high

A beeswax candle. A brass candle holder carved in the shape of a tree. A sprig of fragrant jasmine. This is what Lucienne lays on the small round table in her chambers.

Once they’re arranged precisely so, Lucienne lights the candle and takes a seat. She’s careful, but the squeal of chair legs against the floorboards still makes her flinch. She watches the curl of smoke as the delicate scent of the beeswax settles deep into her lungs.

3. Suffer Love

Proper paperwork didn’t catch on in Hell until the twentieth century, but once it did it seized the bit in its teeth and exploded down the racetrack.

Luckily, by that time, the demon Crowley had already pretty well worked out his excuses regarding the Arrangement. He could write it off as an encouragement of Sloth, for example. Even better that it was that of an angel, the—pardon his French—god-tier of temptable beings; what other demon could claim that? It made him feel a little smug, really.

2. i’ll be your friend, i will love you so deeply

“You’re brooding, Lucienne.”

Jerked from her reverie, Lucienne blinks and refocuses on Dream as they pace side by side en route to the throne room. “Oh—it’s nothing, my lord.”

“There is no ‘nothing’ where you are concerned.”

Lucienne knows a compliment when she hears one, and she smiles slightly. “Well, it’s maudlin, at least.”

1. todas tus luces (all your lights)

Calliope was still humming as she and Gault walked down the rain-slick street away from the school, Calliope holding an umbrella over the two of them.

“It’s catchy, isn’t it?” Gault said, sounding amused. “Isaac’s dreams have been full of the soundtrack for weeks.”

As for patterns…I don’t think I see one? If anyone spots one, feel free to comment on it! There’s a good mix here, I think. Dialogue; atmospheric details; musings out of the direct action (#7 and #3). I don’t find beginnings as difficult as most other parts of the writing process.

I think my favorite opening out of these is #9, “the boy in his deathless arms.” Because for Dream and Calliope, they’ve felt that storm building ever since they found out their son was/was going to be mortal. They always knew they would outlive him. And that fic is just chock full of foreshadowing, so I think starting it off with a line about storm clouds works well.

I’m also extremely fond of the second paragraph of #7!

Same tagging rules as Tryan’s—if you made it to the end of this post, consider yourself tagged 😁

[late-to-the-fandom]

Wip Wthursday

Thank you @vcaudley this is good, I like this title. Time zones can go straight to hell.

Rules:

In a reblog (or new post/w rules attached) post up to five filenames of your WIPs, not titles, file names

Post a snippet from one of them. Snippet must be something you wrote in the last 7 days (we're posting progress here. If you haven't made any, go make some and come back to post!)

After you've posted, people can send you an ask with one of your file names. You must then write 3 sentences in that file. If the filename is one you can't share from, write 3 sentences on it anyway and then 3 more on another to share!

That's it! You can invite others to join in or just post. If you tag me in your post, I will send you an ask request.

I always feel bad admitting my documents really are titled proper chapter titles because I cannot write in them otherwise (like how you can't write in notebook unless it's pretty? Same concept). Here's the five latest updated docs and their most recent snippet.

The Ohn'aran Plains He wanted this ritual to mean nothing. Because if it meant nothing, he was missing nothing. And if it mattered ... Renathal's eyes flashed behind his lenses ... it if mattered, then he and Elisewin were not quite as bound together as he thought.

SU Chapter 5: Promises and Improprieties "Shall I confess something?" "Please do." "I have wanted to do this for some time." "Really?" The Maw Walker craned her neck to catch sight of Renathal's expression. "Help me wash my hair while keeping my casts out of water? That's a very strange and specific fantasy."

Wend Chapter 1: The Master Awaits Propping himself up on an elbow, Renathal eyed his room suspiciously, but a quick sweep of the tidy chamber was enough to convince him nothing had been moved, or even touched. His clothes and armor hung dutifully on their forms, waiting to be donned. His medallion rested on its velvet-lined stand atop the mirrored chiffonier. Each item of purposeless sentiment arranged just so on the mantlepiece, and the rarely-used chairs in front of it, were all in exactly the same positions they had been assigned for eternity. Or at least since he had last redecorated, in... ... when had that been?

Wend Chapter 10: A Reflection of Truth The first question was where. Soulbinding required a Soulforge, a highly specialised magical structure, responsible for conducting anima from one soul to another in a way that bound both together. They were a rarity in Revendreth, due both to the difficulty of their creation and Sire Denathrius' near moratorium on the practice. In all of Revendreth's history, Renathal had only ever known the existence and location of two. All of which he explained to Elisewin as she lay half-tangled in his limbs after the bliss of her initial acquiescence had settled enough to make room for more practical details.

Wend Chapter 8: Mix, Mingle, and Meddle "And you think the Countess would just invite me to her Court for benevolent reasons? Perhaps to apologise?" "Of course not." Renathal chuckled at the thought. "She means trouble. And I mean to give it to her." It was Elisewin's turn to laugh and Renathal caught her round the waist and pulled her into his chair. Far too decorous and staid for two bodies, it creaked alarmingly. Renathal ignored it. He fully intended to be doing this for the rest of eternity. The furniture would simply have to get used to the idea, as would the rest of the realm.

Tagging: @shipping-through-eternity @mousterian-writes @velvethopewrites @diaryofomellas @tsunderewatermelon @frozen-fountain @averyauthorship @yarol2075 @witchcraft-in-wonderland @gummybugg @1legitconnor @tananaphone @karimac @moonluringfrost @27fanficlilies @duckingwriting

[takami-takami]

OMG OMG ur so right about thee all might thing, idk why i never realized until now but i always wondered why keigs never really talked too much about all might even tho I know he cares about more .. en- anyways its like that thing where earlier said he " would " get arranged married and have a kid around the 30's til the new flashy young hero comes but no! with his partner or people close to him he'd very much want to be w raw people even if it's uncomfortable at first to be vulnerable, like he's that guy to say " youre perfect" but not in the sense oh everything is.. so perfect nothing wrong you can do, but no more like "youre perfect" because youre human and you can mistakes and have fun and be a bit weird, you know?!

also ive thought about the thing of being more extroverted or more silent around his partner, so he's the type of dude that talks so much but never know anything about him, well this could go 2 ways like A: he talks a lot more around them because he feels like he can be a lot more unfiltered and can feel good about finally having someone to talk to about his opinion n have it off his chest (For example what u said abt all might being too "perfect" very built to be famous) unlike most famous people have to be vague so they dont get hate OR B: he's more silent and enjoys his partner talk more because he understands that his partner understands him (especially if they were also famous OR friends before dating) and tbh i dont think this would only apply to dating but just people he's closer with !! there was more i was gonna say but i forgot LMAO but its rly fun when u talk about ur thoughts of keigo its really fun:)

YOUR BRAIN IS SO HUGE!!!

Keigo saying "you're perfect" but you know he means it in the "you're a person and you have flaws— and your flaws are irresistible to me" way? I'm swooning, that's so him. Sucker for the raw, so romantic...

I love the analysis on the second part!! Yes, yes, it would definitely apply to close friends too once he learns to trust them! Now I'm thinking to myself too, which would it be of those two ways... Maybe a mix of both, with the first more often? I think he's a bit chatty so he might ramble too!

[randomvarious]

Today’s mix:

Global Underground 019: Los Angeles by John Digweed 2001 Progressive House / Tribal House

That's right, folks. It's a picture of former first lady Michelle Obama, who just so happens to be holding up a copy of one of the most overrated DJ mixes that I think I've ever heard in my life. And judging by the look on her face here, I don't think that she was too much into it either, which then begs the question, why did she even have this photo taken in the first place?! What's that? No, I didn't Photoshop this thing! This picture is real deal Holyfield! I swear on it.

Anyway. No disrespect to the great John Digweed—he's a world-famous DJ for a reason, and the Northern Exposure stuff that he did with Sasha is first-ballot hall of fame commercial mix material. But this dark progressive house double-disc that he put together in '01 for the highly popular Global Underground series, that tried to replicate a set he played in Los Angeles at Halloween time the year prior, is a pretty underwhelming affair, to say the least.

And I think that this might actually be one of the most unpopular opinions that I hold regarding a singular dance mix, because, while a near-unanimous consent of people seem to hold this release up in a very high regard, often ranking it as one of the greatest DJ mixes that's ever been made, I happen to be someone who was actually *really* bored by most of it.

I guess, in a similar way to tech-house, which I posted about last week, progressive house is a dance genre that isn't really my jam, either. Generally, a lot of the songs feel like progressive trance tunes, but without any of the significant build-ups, melodies, or peaks that make progressive trance such a good genre in the first place. So, the rhythms here are intricate and some of the sounds that get used feel nifty and newfangled, but oftentimes, there's no real lead melody to cinch all of it together. And maybe I'm just an electronic music simpleton in this way, but I tend to prefer music that has considerable amounts of both rhythm and melody; I don't much care for a lot of ambient music, which tends to lack rhythm, and I don't really like stuff that doesn't have a lead melody either, because then the rhythms just get to feeling rather listless and monotonous.

But Digweed still managed to satisfy my tastebuds with a few of the tracks on the second disc, and it's because none of those ones are just mostly rhythmic; they've got melody too. James Holden's remix of Roland Klinkenberg's "Inner Laugh" contains a pervasive melody, in which the soft stabs are set to a high amount of reverb and end up leaving an enjoyably hazy cloud of synth work for the growing snare drums to pierce through; then there's Cass' "Genesis," which brings in some majestic string arrangements; and at the end is DJ Remy's remix of Salt Tank's "The Energy," a song that interestingly more or less clashes its pretty unique lead melody against its splashing drumbeat, instead of doing the normal thing, which is letting the melody ride atop.

But overall, this album turned out to be an unfortunate slog-fest for me. Definitely not my cup of tea when it comes to dance music, and one of my least favorite dispatches from the Global Underground series thus far as well. I don't mind a darker vibe at all, and the transitions on here are simply immaculate, but all in all, I'm sorry Diggers; I’m afraid that I really just don't get this one 😔.

Listen to CD1 here. Listen to CD2 here.

Highlights:

CD2:

Roland Klinkenberg - "Inner Laugh (James Holden Remix)" Cass - "Genesis (Original Mix)" Salt Tank - "The Energy (DJ Remy Remix)"