#but to be fair some of them are SO pretty without the extra stuff anyway

[kinki-cami]

Nah because i would FLORISH being an independent in affini society

Like first off, im not isolated immediately that brings me up by like 45% like i can go see that forest, hang out with the (hopefully not going to bite me or give me rabies) animals pet some squirrels say hi to the hummingbirds, i can go into public and walk around, id honestly probably start skipping bc thats what ive imagined so far considering i wouldnt be as depressed as i am now

Secondly, FULL customization of what i wear just be able to look how i want without fear, probably wear my denim look but with some extra like, an ACTUAL denim skirt that looks nice, maybe makeup if i was feeling up to it

Thirdly, just exploration. This is pretty much the miscellaneous second of this post. Because theres probably no money (i assume i need to do more research) before i get to that i fuckin love research i would know every fuckin affini custom by year 5, anyway because of presumeably no money, fake shop at the mall bc hell yeah fuckin love the mall its like a mini city, youd go in like you were going to the mall and like fake "check out" with like a fake credit card or something and yahh fun but also id just like go get coffee, possibly some matcha, skip around town wearing heels WITH my denim outfit, looking all fuckin cute, go see the plants (not affini like houseplants like mint) fuck id grow some bleeding hearts, some mint, make sure to pick up plant food, bc even tho i CAN do it in the hab unit, its more fun leaving to pick stuff up, it gives you a sense of accomplishment like "yahhhh i did something today ���� (its a crime theres no 'fist pump' emoji, i swear there are more useless emojis than practical ones)" and because i wouldnt be in one location for 6+ hours a day (excluding sleep) i would have time to do things that i WANNA do, like finish that pokemon book that im only on kakuna out of pecharunt. And i could drink my coffee/tea and go to the game store and play magic with peoples or pokemon, i could go play some dnd, write my damn books, skip around in heels bc skipping is happy but i wanna wear heels soo yahhhh

Yeah i may occassionally get harrassed but like if im polite and express boundries im sure theyll leave me alone or at least relatively along

By the way im going based off of the two stories ive read so far aight, so if this is very biased aight. Too bad i need to read more. But also like, i can express myself two 2 stories ok? Like a girl can fantasize anyway back my fantasy

Eventually id want an affini to adopt me but like, god id be pretty happy without drugs theyd need to actively make my life miserable to make me want the drugs, like, damn. Also with the number of times im cursing in this post any and all affini rp blogs are gonna be like "stop fucking cursing little indie" and to be fair i dont like cursing at people the only time i do is when im expressing myself or am pissed off i never call anyone curse words because its mean and i dont like being mean 🥺

Uhh and i think thats all my thoughts god i had Sadistic glee read the bonus chapters of hdg a bit ago anyway gotta gp finish those, then go finish the other one that im halfway through then go read more, if anyone has any not emotionally wrecking stories feel free to send them via asks or something like i dont wanna see characters despairing but i dont mind seeing their personality erased, as long as the struggle isnt super visible or is minimal

[irisintheafterglow]

Polish Up Real Nice! (bnha boys x you)

summary: hcs about taking care of yourself and taking care of the boys (with bakugo, shoto, izuku, kirishima, and denki)

cw/tags: swearing cuz bakugo is here, sickeningly cheesy fluff, the tiniest little bit of angst, pet names (love, babe, baby, sweetheart, lovey)

note: this is your reminder to take good fucking care of yourself because you deserve to feel loved !!!

likes, reblogs, and feedback is always appreciated <3

Bakugo Katsuki

he has a longer skincare routine than you

does not matter if your routine is 2 steps or 10

he absolutely has a more complex regimen

will hide your body wash/shampoo to force you to use his instead

he likes it when you smell like him because he doesn't know how to voice his fuckin emotions any other way

it's ok !!! we love him anyway !!!

will automatically assume you're using his stuff if he starts running out

"babe, do you know what the fuck happened to my serums?"

"no, love, i'm sorry"

"you're not using them behind my back, are you?"

"i can't read half of the instructions on that tiny-ass bottle."

"it's self-explanatory-"

"it's also $100 for literally 2 milliliters, kats."

"that's a no, then."

it was denki lmao he was over at your house trying to figure out which bottle was soap

also has a haircare routine but not as strict as skincare

he'll just put leave-in conditioner if he wants it to look extra fluffy

MELTS when you massage oil into his scalp

he would rather die than wear one of those cutesy face masks

but he's over here putting fucking cucumbers on his eyes

you have a photo of him with a clay mask on and cucumbers over his eyes that he doesn't know you took

immediately sent it to his friends and now every single contact photo is of that picture

his love language is most definitely not words of affirmation but i think quality time is a strong contender

so when you're both getting ready in the morning he'll wordlessly hand you bottles of products without you asking because he's memorized your habits too <3

Todoroki Shoto

has like????? no skincare routine??????

man is just effortlessly pretty

for a long time he'd just use whatever momo or his mom recommended to him

when he started dating you and you asked about his skincare routine, he was the definition of confused

he was like

"i wash it??"

"no, but like with what product, sweetheart?"

"soap??"

despite not having much of a routine for himself, he will buy you WHATEVER you want

does not matter if the product costs more than the fucking moon

he'll have at least two bottles of it in your house at all times so you never run out

whenever he visits the store or has an assistant out shopping for him, he'll ask if you need anything (applies to basically everything but especially selfcare items)

when you do a facemask with him your favorite part is tying back his hair and giving him a tiny little sprout on the top of his head

also melts when you massage hair oil into his scalp

but he likes to give you massages more

could be with lotion or body wash, doesn't matter

will heat and/or cool his body depending on what you need

he likes running his hands over your skin until you're on the verge of falling asleep

and then he'll just lie down next to you and press his body against yours

Midoriya Izuku

doesn't really know much about skincare but is very eager to learn!!

adores doing facemasks with you

will pick up silly little animal masks from the store while he's on patrol

"look, it's a penguin."

"zuku, my love, where did you get these?"

"on patrol today."

"you're supposed to be stopping villains, babe."

"to be fair, i did kick the hell out of some thieves before buying them."

"ah, so you rewarded yourself."

"by being able to spend time with you, yes."

when he comes home late from a mission or from patrol and he's too tired to take care of his curls, you do it for him

just taking care of him in general when his body is physically unable to do it

which is quite often because you know, he's fucking deku

you'll lead him to the bath and make sure the water is warm beforehand

after he's settled and you clean any pressing wounds, you start working on his hair

he almost falls asleep right there, with your fingers gently rubbing product into his curls

you have to gently wake him to remind him to rinse

will sleepily watch you put on lip balm and then ask to try it

when you hand it out to him, he shakes his head

you smile and he kisses it off your lips

"that's pretty good. keep wearing it, please."

Kirishima Eijiro

probably uses a simple face wash and moisturizer

sometimes uses toner if you remind him but he doesn't really need it since his skin doesn't get super oily

he has a hand care routine

does that even exist??

it does now !

one of your nightly routines with him is rubbing lotion into his palms

because of his quirk, they can get really, really rough and dry

his skin in general gets beat up the most

he tries to remember to put lotion on but he's so busy that he forgets often

he also likes it better when you're sitting across from him and dotingly running your thumb along his palms

despite having a lot of callouses, it's one of the more sensitive spots on his body

"what is it, eiji?"

"that tickles."

he also asks you if you can help him take care of his nails, too

they tend to get roughed up during battles and he also sometimes picks at his cuticles absentmindedly

you help him clean up the nailbeds and scrub dirt from under the fingernails

he watches you like you painted the stars in the sky

when he comes out of the shower and his hair is down, he'll shake his head like a dog if you're in close proximity

effectively hitting you with water like a lawn sprinkler

the absolute KING of physical affection self-care

if you've had a hard day sometimes the one thing you need is just for him to lay his entire body weight on you

"can i ask a favor, babe?"

"anything, lovey."

"work was shit today, could you-"

he's already throwing himself at you and burying you both into the couch cushions

Kaminari Denki

definitely used hand soap to wash his face before dating you

instead of hiding your body wash to make you smell like him, he likes to use your products instead to make him smell like you

because of the videos you send him, most of his social media feed is influencers doing product reviews

he'll send you those product reviews and ask if it's legit or not

if you say it's legit, he'll buy it for you even if you didn't ask for it

"the fuck is this?"

"looks like some crystal roller thing, i don't know."

"baby, you're the one that bought it."

"to be fair, i black out every time i press 'proceed to cart,' so i don't remember doing it."

LOVES taking pictures and videos while you're doing self-care together

he's a sucker for the domestic life what can i say

will play music while you're trying to do your routine and take videos of him just spinning you around your bathroom

his skin also tends to dry out because of his quirk and sometimes he just needs a nice, long soak

will adamantly try to convince you to join him

not in a sexual way but in a matter of he has a small water gun hiding below the surface of the bubbles

instead of doing deep pressure therapy for you, sometimes he needs it from you

it gets hard for him, being a conduit of such a volatile quirk, and he needs you to remind him that his body isn't just a weapon

therefore he likes to just walk up behind you and ask to put his arms around you or just hold you

because he needs it

and deep down?

you need it too

if you think this was self indulgent then you are absolutely correct;

if you enjoy my writing and would like to support me, you can buy me a coffee on my ko-fi! you can also check out my full masterlist here :)

[romana-after-dark]

Roman's 1000 follower fundraiser game!

Hello friends!!!

I am so happy to see I have 1200 followers! Thank you so much everyone who got me here, old followers from when I first wrote The Wrong Way, to new followers with my Logan Howlett era, to everyone that know me from my main and followed me to dark fics! Words cannot express how much yall mean to me and how much the support I've gotten through the hard things means.

I want to do a celebration, but something that won't overwhelm me. I'm switching work stuff around, however, so I should have more time and be less exhausted and sad.

So I’m doing a fundraiser game!

The charity: I will be donating to my favorite charity, Smile Train. when I was 6, I saw an add for Smile Train and asked my mom if I could donate. My mom said we didn't have enough money to both donate, and do the yearly church fair, so I had to choose. Of course, I was 6 so I chose going to the fair. And I felt bad about that every since. So, my go to has always been Smile Train for charities ever since. When I was in middle school I saved every allowance for a year and did some extra chores to save enough for a whole surgery! Now, I'm not that ambitious this time bc I am in fact, poor. But I can set aside some for the needy. I considered doing Palestinian Children's Relief Fund, but I found out Smile Train actually partners with them so it works!

How it works: So, As y'all've probably noticed, I love music so much, that almost every title of a fic is either a song title or a song lyric. Sometimes I say it, sometimes I don't.

THROUGHOUT THE END OF NOVEMBER!

Look though my masterlist here or on my main, @romanarose. Find at least one fic titled after a song.

Send an ask with UP TO 5 Song title/fic title connections. No More. This is to allow everyone a chance, and to no overwhelm me.

One title = 100 words. You find 3 song titles? you get a 300 word blurb. find 5? 500! 500 is the limit.

If you send a fic title that has already been pointed out in an ask from another person, sorry, it'd not counted! (Unless I'm really feeling the writing). Send 4 titles but 2 have been used already? You get 200 words!

Send me what you want. it doesn't have to be dark! I'll make an exception. Characters I'll write for bellow!

For every fic title/ song reference, I will donate $1 to Smile Train! The more songs we can find, the more money they get (without overdoing my bank account. However Nov has extra friday which means more pay for me.) Questions you may have: "What if someone else said the fic title, but it was published and I didn't see it, or it's still sitting in your asks because you are always super fucking slow at doing these ROMAN" Yeah you're right I'm always slow at these. I guess you're SOL, buddy. If it's already sitting in my asks, I won't commit to adding it to your word count. BUT if my creative juices are flowing, I may have mercy

"What if all of my song titles I found have been used already?"

Well, frankly, I'll probably write you something still! I'm not mean.

"What if you didn't use a song title, but we find a song with it anyway?"

Well, that's up to my discretion. If it's a song I know that may have influenced the title subliminally I might count it! But if it wasn't in intentional thing, no guarantees. But Again, I'll be flexible.

"How are we supposed to know what goes on in your weird little old man head."

Uhhhhhhhhh bestie I dont even know what's happening in there!!!! Just have fun with it. See if you recognize songs or lines. It's okay

"What about chapters?"

Great Q, voice in my head! Since most fics I don't have chapter titles, I'll allow it! If I have a bonus chapter, or a chapter i just wanted to title and its a song, go ahead! Only exception is Rooms on Fire. Sorry, but i'm pretty clear those are intentionally all songs. It's too easy.

"$1 is per fic title is awful cheap."

Bestie my checkings over drafted today!!! I got it covered and figured out, this is just a little something I wanna do with LITTLE extra money but I still have debt I gotta work on it's tough out here!!!

Any more questions send them in! YOU HAVE UNTIL DECEMBER 1ST WHICH IS WHEN DEAD DOVE DECEMBER STARTS AGAIN!

Logan Howlett

any Triple Frontier boys sans Tom

Moon Boys

Wade Wilson

Kylo Ren

Scott Summers

Remy Lebeau (but not dark for him I can't see it. Will allow dark reader though!)

Tommy Miller

Javier Pena

Han Solo (no non con, maybe dub con)

Steve Murphy

And yes, I've said I'm done with Joel but I will allow for Joel this time because it's for charity and he pulls people in.

and although I've never written them, I'll write for the Bikeriders Cal, Benny, or Johnny but no non con. I'll play wit dub con, and dark reader

I will also write canon character x canon character, so if you want some Scogan or Johnny x Benny or FishBen, Im in! If a pairing is something I feel just doesn't lend itself to the scenario you give me, I might tweek it. Everything is up to my discretion!

I will also write crossovers!

And I will write any of my oc's and anything in universe. So fen, if you wanna read you and Lorenzo go crazy! If you want a blurb shipping Scott and Dolly in OGS, just ask!

Open to it all

This is my little celebration my rules and discretion, but I want this to be overall fun!!! Just a good ole time! Don't take it too seriously, and we'll raise money in the mean time!

[slightly-warmer-hibiscus-tea]

CW: OC talk + Rambling / Blood / Gore / Censored Nudity (character sheet) / Mentions of Drugging

(idk why these warnings are so intense, but I swear it's all just silly OC talk T^T)

I’m kinda sorta working on more (comprehensible) TS OC stuff in between studying right now… I wanna hurry and talk about them but without info dumping (if given the opportunity I will without hesitation 😔…) because in terms of the best stories I have conjured up for OCs in general Naudedel and Noble are surprisingly good and I’m very excited to share how deranged they are together…

Right now it’s just about making Naudy readable and working on extra fun stuff… like monsters!

I’m trying to work out his “monster” form…. The concept is there, but the execution is just not ticking the right boxes for me right now… also, the line art at the end is old and probably will go unused, but thought it was something to add here because like hehe look at my deranged son :)

When it comes to the writing I'm going to split it into two chapters. The first half will be a summary+ of his upbringing, and the second on how he fucked up his arm and why. Just enough info to get a read on what his deal is pretty much. I just need to edit the first chapter and rewrite some parts then it's ready to annoy the world!

I'm trying to think of a good design for his original mother... I'm thinking dark hair and milf (¬‿¬)･ﾟ✧ ... honestly I need to start drawing out the designs for all the other TS OCs I've accumulated over the year (?) here's a fun list-

Hickery (bloodhound OC... dilf oc...I've already been made fun of for his name, but it stuck to me so I'm keeping it!)

Maya (another bloodhound OC)

Cove (Hound's ex-husband)

Cetcher's gf + informant, who still needs a good name...

and that one guy! (doesn't have a name yet... but is important in Hound's part of the story... she bashed some of his guys in the back of head with a hammer... it was a whole thing... Leander got involved... gang war stuff, don't worry about it...)

There are technically more OCs, like that Hightown lady Noble befriended during their first few weeks in town. However, I'm not sure if I'm including her in the final plot meeting. But yeah, anyway I'm rambling so on to Noble news!

For Noble, everything is plotted out in advance surprisingly…character playlist and all... just need to find the words to explain their story other than “parasite with a weird God complex feels guilty” I do have some old memes and art of them though!

Noble curse stuff...

Childhood cult stuff...

Current reality...

Poor person masquerade dress censored for tumblr...

Noble folks!

I actually wrote out a whole little thing for the black dress in a what-if scenario of...

"Oh! ,,,What if there is a masquerade in Hightown and Noble sneaks in to get some information on a certain individual who might know a thing or two about curses, but turns out the whole event if devious and their all eating babies or some fucked up shit,,,, and what if while sneaking around they see Leander and are like 'what's he doing here?' and they lock eyes but he ignores them as he ducks into a closed off area with some important looking people,,, once he comes out he walks past them and they lock eyes again as he leaves,,, Noble chases after him and once they catch up they get to see his cold and detached side right before he hides them from the other guest,,, after they talk for a bit, or more like Leander talking over them and their worries as he slowly wipes their memories while they protest that it's not fair only to wake up the next day back in their room,,, thankfully their curse is good for more then just silly bouts of insanity so they have a hunch on what happened, everyone around them who knew where they went the night before were obviously worried and the general consensus is that they might have been drugged and should go check in with Kuras just in case (wow this is getting long...) but on their way to the clinic they run into Leander and of course discusses their current problem with him ,,, words are exchanged,,, a kabedon may occur,,, as he whispers in their ear,,, all fun till he erases their memories again, or at least tires before receiving a little gift that makes him look at this whole curse thing from a different angle." DEEP BREATH! ...Anyways... yeah.

But it was taking so long to write out that I ended up losing motivation so yeah... like everything else we will pray the motivation comes back so I can finish that... plus who knows, I might make an x reader version of it if I can. (don't hold your breath... I'm extremely slow)

Anyway, I'm gonna to shut up now because I've yapped enough. I'mma make some hibiscus tea (ironic) and head to bed... Night night, if you made it this far, thank you for listening to my craziness <3

[its-cartooncrazy]

Okay i finished my dunmeshi reread where I was trying to predict which chapters will go into which episodes for season 2 (assuming 24 episodes)

I made some questionable splits towards the end tbh but I ended up with 24 without pushing too hard so. I guess I'll write down my thoughts here mostly so when season 2 comes I can compare them

So I'm gonna add my screenshots from my notes page so I'll explain that the yellow numbers was me guessing from chapter titles and my poor memory, and the pink is from my reread and focusing on content.

I started by looking at season 1 and how they split stuff up. Every episode was two chapters, save for a few that either didn't need full episodes, or were a lot of action which takes up more space in comics. (I don't know where exactly the dragon chapters split, but the 7 dragon chapters + good medicine were 3 episodes, so that makes 2 episodes of 3 chapters there.) They also preferred to keep 2 part chapters in one episode, but also didn't shy away from doing it either.

Theres only enough chapters left for 22.5 episodes at a rate of 2 chapters per episode, so we actually never have to group three chapters into a single episode again!

That being said...

On Floor One features would be a banger season opener. It features a couple of fight scenes, so it shouldn't be too long. I wouldn't want to split it into two episodes anyway because for a season opener, I wouldn't want to be away from the main cast for too long.

(It also, oddly enough, cuts back to our cast and gives them little name badges, which is a joke about the changelings, but also its very fitting to reintroduce our characters in their first appearance in season 2)

Bicorn / Stewed Head go together very easily, as do Succubus 1 + 2

Jumping ahead a little, roasted walking mushroom and 6 days would fit together nicely, especially with the Winged Lion taking place during the Succubus chapters, but. I don't wanna squeeze that in with them...

I think if trigger do their thing, 6 days could be an episode all on its own (and it could be one of the best episodes, too) And hey, if they need more content then there's a couple of monster tidbits extras that take place here that they could add!

Confit was the problem child. I wanted Rabbit and Curry to get their own episodes, but I also wanted 6 days to stay alone, which left confit alone. It features a fair bit of important stuff: reaching thistles house, cleaning up, finding the book (and opening it I think), and eating the phoenix, so I wouldn't feel right cramming it with something else.

So I ignored it for the time being, to see if Rabbit and Curry could be split in half.

Confit would lead well into rabbit 1, with them arriving at the house and having a meal, and then rabbit 1 takes place shortly after the meal. Rabbit 1 ends with laios getting got by a rabbit. That seems like a pretty fun cliffhanger to be honest. Rabbit 2 ends with them comforting marcille, and then curry 1 cuts away to several scenes viewed through the eyes of the mage, ending with them showing up at the house. And then...

Grouping curry 2 and thistle 1 together is kinda evil actually. Sibling flashback scene, that fight, and then thistle backstory?? Yikes. I love it actually. So yeah I'll go with that.

Thistle 2 and 3 feature the dragon fight (placing the teaser at a predicted episode 9) and then thistle 4 and 5 include the chat with laios, the lion eating thistles desires, and then the wrap up meal. I'm pretty satisfied with that if a little disappointed we don't end an episode with laios in the plant

Bavarois and whatchamacallit are both the canaries' interrogation so thats easy, ending with a cliffhanger of sorts where the lion is fully released by marcille.

Lord of the Dungeon 1 and 2 are both pretty full chapters. It continues the fight with the canaries, which unfortunately features a lot of talking still, and then the aftermath with our group waking up to a room of unconscious canaries and spider guts like that one community gif.

Dungeon 1 is actually a shorter chapter. Putting these two together would possibly make for a kinda sparse episode. So, we have a full episode and an empty episode. Can we borrow a scene from lord of the dungeon to even it out? No! Because almost all of Lord of the Dungeon 2 is kabrus epic fumble, which isn't a scene that can be cut up neatly. Let's set those aside for a bit and see if the solution comes from the next few.

We have three single chapters before our next grouping, which doesn't split nicely into 2s like I want it to. Unfortunately, none of these are particularly short, and we're past the point in the series where we can skimp on the details. Parasites starts with a shortish scene with marcille and frozen falin, so I wondered about giving that to dungeon, if I could group the three together with slightly less content, but I think there's still probably too much content to get through with those three chapters even without that scene. (Not to mention, I don't think season one ever split any part of a chapter between episodes, so I'm reluctant)

Honestly, I thought for a long time about how to arrange these chapters and never came to a conclusion, so I just moved on for a bit, to see if answers were in the next section. (Spoiler alert: they were!)

Marcille 1 is kind of a misnomer (if I know what that word means) since it doesn't actually focus on marcille at all, and instead shows people around the world reacting to the dungeons opening. I don't feel as bad separating it from the rest of marcille in that case. (It's also a short chapter but local cuisine has a fair bit in it so I think that won't matter)

So to sum up the last section before we move fully into the marcilles, we have Lord of the Dungeon, Dungeon, Parasites/Food Chain and Local Cuisine/Marcille 1. Phew, that was a lot of effort just to end up splitting them into pairs of chapters. (Dungeon may still borrow from parasites, but that's up to them. Yknow, if they were still looking at how to split them up in this stage of production or whatever XD)

Marcille 4 ends with the group hug and, as sad as I am to not get a week to sit with that scene, it wouldn't work as well as an episode ending during the big finale battle segment, so pairing it with Winged Lion 1 (mostly chatting up on that tower, concluding with them getting gobbled up by the monster pile lion) works pretty well and gives a good cliffhanger.

Winged Lion 2 and 3 gives us Lion backstory, and then laios becoming dungeon master, ending with him plopping his head back on like its nothing. Lmao I can't wait to see what the outtro is for this episode.

Winged Lion 4 is short, actually, and with the action of Winged Lion 5, that episode might be a bit sparse. But, well. Iunno I figured it's fine? Look, I started to give up and make weird decisions around this point. Winged Lion 5 ends with everyone freezing and then laios picking up "laios".

Winged Lion 6 I gave its own episode. It doesn't have enough content for that, to be honest, but I gotta put some single chapter episodes in here somewhere and where better than laios eating laios and laios and laios and laios and then the winged Lions desire to eat desires. Idk I said I gave up, didn't I?

Starting here, I start to worry about momentum. How long can you keep people interested after the Big Bad has been defeated? Def-eat-ed lol

The Island I also gave its own episode, just 'cause, I guess. It features the action packed escape from the dungeon, everyone washing up safe and sound, and then searching for laios, ending with a nice hug. I didnt seem to take my own advice tbh, that ending doesn't really force you to keep watching. Hm.

Falin 1 and 2 gives us everyone pitching in to prepare to eat laios sister, and also mithrun 🥺, but much like the last episode, doesn't end on too captivating a note (although it is a very good scene, it just doesn't lead in to the next episode so much) so I guess I really didn't take my own advice much. I swear I took this into consideration while I was reading but I guess I gave up lol

Falin 3 is the izutsumi show, where she asks everyone what they're gonna do now (not cooking, I mean in life!!) and ive put this one by itself because there are plenty of scenes that could be expanded upon, and also izu deserves a whole episode to think about her character development because she is the best and I love her.

This also lets us group falin 4 and dungeon meshi for the season finale. Another reason I wanted falin 4 to go in this arrangement is that this is where laios becomes king, which really just screams "finale" for me. We also get falin waking up, and a sweet epilogue of laios' fantastic reign, plus him being good with kids <3

So uhhh. Yeah. That's how I would split up the chapters. Quick recap/summary to make it clear hopefully:

1: 53,54,55

2: 56,57

3: 58,59

4: 60,61

5: 62

6: 63,64

7: 65,66

8: 67,68

9: 69,70

10: 71,72

11: 73,74

12: 75,76

13: 77,78

14: 79,80

15: 81,82

16: 83,84

17: 85,86

18: 87,88

19: 89,90

20: 91

21: 92

22: 93,94

23: 95

24: 96,97

That was a lot of waffling to end up with mostly just two chapters per episode tbh. If you've made it all the way, I hope you don't consider your time wasted lol. Looking forward to seeing how trigger does it!

[jermagaunt]

Another game and this one was very close! Same opponent as the Tyranid list I lost horribly to but it was my Black Templar list (every list I run is very slightly different as I try out slightly different stuff but i can give lists if anyone is interested) Vs Votann this time. First picture is after setup and scout moves. I went first and we're playing linchpin with search and destroy deployment and smoke and mirrors mission rule.

I pushed forward aggressively first turn to get some good primary scoring turn 2, drew bad secondaries so didn't score many of them. Did no shooting and got pretty poor advances on all my guys so a few had to stay out in the open. I pushed my land raider forward because there were no tyrannofexes to threaten a one shot on it...

...You may notice in the next picture that there is no longer a land raider. The Hekaton managed to get a sustained hit 2 on it with it's d6+6 damage shot and wounded with all of them... The one time I wasn't massively cagey with my land raider and fairly confident it won't blow up turn one and it does... Anyway, the show goes on and thankfully the rest of the shooting didn't wipe out any of my other units (he did get his 3 extra cp for the land raider being a judge target though). Not great secondary scoring for my opponent either set me up for a big turn of primary. Oh yeah, I also overwatched his little transport and got 3 hits on it with eradicators which was insane! Only got one wound but did max damage and it then suicided into my crusader squad.

Turn two I got lots of primary and stupidly pulled my scouts off the objective they needed to hold so I wouldn't score it next turn, my opponent rapid ingressed his deep strike unit on to take my home objective (just out of frame) and I did some hiding with my now vulnerable sword bros. Was able to get some good secondary scoring this turn and still holding a fair few objectives if I can keep them for turn 3

Very effective dispatching of my units on objectives turn 3 meant I was gonna have a turn of no primary. Sword bros survived and I rapid ingressed my reserve crusader squad to deal with the little guy terminators on my home. Thankfully the sword bros survived as my opponent focused my squads on objectives.

My turn 3, got back onto some objectives and took my home back effectively. Got bring it down and was hoping to get both Hekatons after wounding the further one last turn. Unfortunately my eradicators did nothing that turn and my laser destroyer also whiffed leaving it on 7 wounds still after 2/3 6+ saves being made! (Might've been 5+, it was still very sad). The sword bros managed to make their charges to blow up the land fortress (with a reroll needed as they still both only just made their 6" charges, the crusaders made their 1" charge with double 6s though so don't worry about them). I should have consolidated into the other unit at this point and saved some CP for no escape (to stop them leaving combat) and armour of contempt but I felt like I needed the help with the land fortress so spent on on +1ap (Helbrecht ended up killing it without the help of his squad which was expected)

Must've missed a picture as we were rushing to finish the game but the last few turns had my sword bros with Helbrecht shot to shit (hence why they shouldve moved to combat and no escaped). And my sword bros ran to the middle to get me primary for the last turn and finish off the Votann squad there who were currently scoring to get me assassinate as well

We were both convinced the Votann couldn't catch up by the last turn but t was a lot closer than it seemed by the end, my sword bros failed every save so didn't get me any score turn 5 and I drew no secondaries I could score even after a redraw (apart from two from cleanse). A big 13 on primary for the last turn after my squad was wiped saw my opponent finish the game just two points behind me!

Very close game, I thought it was all over for me with that turn one land raider death but I was able to keep scoring up despite that big hit early on. Feel like I still learn every game and hope I can rematch this list and eventually beat his nid list! Anywhere, here are the final results

[vntako]

vn in a bottle: her tears were my light

ah i've found something very nice

decided to read some short vns to figure out how to write one and i thought this first one i went for appropriately explicitly defined starts, middles, and endings as part of it's narrative. along with the whole time travel shebang (you play as time) i found this was a bit too appropriate for what i was deciding to write but thought hey this is the universe nudging me gently into finishing the thing.

the story starts with time all alone, and finding space. i love the whole love at first sight schtick, oh and there's an implication of fated lovers thing ("it's like i've met you before" and all that jazz)

space is very cute

i find it difficult to talk about this game without spoiling it bc it's really short and there's not much to say about the exposition apart from space being super cute (the whole thing is around ~30 mins for me, at least less than an hour)

well, to be a bit less vague, i like the story's themes of loneliness. relationships are a complex thing, and memories aren't so reliable sometimes. and people do ultimately change. we misunderstand, we discuss, we compromise. i like that the story reminds us to do our best to try not to leave anyone in our lives lonely.

oh the the fluff between the characters is great, i like a lot

OH forgot to mention the music, it's super good. it fits over the emotional parts so well, especially the true ending song geez. also there are vocal tracks in the extras using eleanor forte and they're really good i need them on like, spotify to put in a playlist (one of them is there, it wasn't my fav but this is pretty nice)

go play this game it's free on itch over here you can play it in your browser no downloads just a bit of loading time

her tears were my light by NomnomNami (itch.io)

spoilers beyond this point

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if it gets you to play it you should know you get to kiss the girls

so you have to save space from being killed by this other girl nil, and she has the power to stop you from rewinding so you gotta start at the start every time you try to save space

the whole "doing different things but always leading to the same result" (insanity) plot line is very appealing to me, and this vn has that. space is killed every time you try to reset. you reset anyway. wowza. i love that.

eventually, we find out nil and space are the same, which is implied by their similar appearances and parallels and stuff. i like that, that's cool, so at that point the goal for you is to reconcile the two of em despite them being polar opposites of each other (space is the girlfailure and nil is the girlboss)

it genuinely hurt me resetting out of the nil ending btw, i didn't get a screenshot but jeezums (nil is best girl sorry)

a few resets in you get to have this moment with space

it's great

i don't like that this kiss decides you abandon nil, though. well, you come around eventually.

you get the true beginning by talking things out with nil, making up for what you've done (even if you don't remember), and deciding not to abandon either of them. that's great, i like that a lot. talking is good.

nil is super cute

to talk a bit more, i like how nil gets so desperate to the point that time misunderstands her intentions. i think, that like happens a fair bit in real life. heck if someone forgot about me to go and have fun with someone else i would uh, die. time hears her out eventually and they come to a compromise and it all works out for the three of them. they both forgive each other. and space doesn't die (yay)

the true beginning is basically a poly ending and that makes this vn a 10/10

[fandomfluffandfuck]

(I sent in the ABO beach snippet, I’m trying to be braver and send filth off anon more! I’m glad you liked it 🥰)

I’ve also been obsessed with the dom!omega Bucky/sub!alpha Steve dynamic you mentioned a bit ago, so… same beach scenario, but dynamic switched. RSDR alpha bartender Steve used to being fawned over by the wealthy omegas who frequent the resort looking for their bit of rough, the fantasy of rugged sex on the beach with a brutal alpha; omega Bucky who didn’t want to come to the beach anyway because he always slicks when he’s hot and he’s not in the mood for a randy alpha jumping him, thanks.

But when they see each other at the cabana bar, SMELL each other - giant, bearded Steve flushes bright red and fumbles the tumbler that a moment ago looked so natural in his hands. And Bucky, who moments ago had been bracing himself to fend off another idiot alpha, finds himself soaking his swim shorts and subtly flashing his wrists - like an alpha would - as he approaches the bar.

Steve turns completely away from the omega that had been in the middle of propositioning him, eyes locked with Bucky’s. It’s loud, but he’s so laser focused that he HEARS the squelch as Bucky sits on his barstool, and Bucky’s smirk tells him he knows he heard it. Bucky leans across the bar so he can waft his scent forward and speak to Steve in a soft growl. When Steve leans in too, Steve finds himself mindlessly humping the counter, his half-hard cock aching and knot already tingling. Neither of them notice all the other patrons shifting uncomfortably as Bucky reaches forward and tucks a strand of hair behind Steve’s ear.

“Didn’t think I’d meet a pretty alpha like you today, sweetheart.”

(I have to get ready for work but feel free to run with it 😉)

related to this

(Oh, nice! It's always fun to put a name to that little grey face, haha. That's fair, though. Putting stuff out there can be nerve-wracking. To some degree, even I'm anonymous here.)

Ooooh, this is interesting!

I don't think I've seen anything out there with an RSDR looking Chris character being the submissive partner. Much less an omegaverse AU. So, points for creativity!

The part that really got me with this, though, was, "When Steve leans in too, Steve finds himself mindlessly humping the counter, his half-hard cock aching and knot already tingling."

Tell me why the hell that's so fucking hot? 😮‍💨😮‍💨

Bug, burly Steve just can't help himself. He smells Bucky, and it's all he can think about--fucking into his sweet, wet heat. His mind has taken a deep dive into the gutter. Without even noticing then, he fucks his hips forward, little thrusts, jerks, against the bar. He just... he needs friction. He needs heat. He needs wetness.

God, please.

He doesn't even know this omega! But he wants him. He's praying as a nonbeliever for this omega to put his money where his mouth is and keep being pushy and dominant because despite his appearance Steve's guilty, carnal pleasure is having the control he should be demanding and reveling in ripped away from him. He wants to give in. Give up.

Although, if we go back to the other snippet you sent in...

Now I'm thinking of beach hook-ups. On the sand or in pick-up truck beds, as I mentioned. But, perhaps, it's neither this time, and instead Bucky leads Steve back to the private section of the beach owned by the luxury hotel. The VIP part of the resort, if you will. Extra expensive.

Bucky's wealth is obvious. It drips off of him like his need to push and shove and take like a feisty alpha might.

After the short, handsy walk--Bucky can't keep his hands off of Steve's belt loops, working his lithe fingers in there and pulling him along--they wind up on the balcony of Bucky's beach front hotel room. They aren't just standing on the wind-swept balcony, though. No. That's too simple. Making out like teenagers, standing, pressed against the railing, isn't enough.

They are making out, lips and teeth and tongue, rough, but they've moved on from being vertical to horizontal. It more. Advanced.

Horizontal with Steve spread out like an offering on one of the two lounge chairs. Hairy, muscular, and just thick.

His big, heavy hands are burning through Bucky's little shorts, touching his delicate waist. The rough edges of his nails dig into Bucky's flesh with every smooth roll of Bucky's hips. Grinding his pert, round ass back against Steve's full cock.

Oh, God, that's it.

Steve can't help but groan. Kicked in the chest.

Fuck.

Steve is a hot line of steel that's still getting thicker. Fattening up. Throbbing. Hot.Yes. Bucky has a desperate hunger inside, and Steve's going to feed him well. He's gonna stuff him full.

Steve's knot hasn't even completely expanded yet, but it will.

Bucky isn't sure how he fit that fucking thing--his goddamn huge cock, he's so hung it's worth sobbing over--in his shorts, but he's glad he did. Bucky's gonna fucking peel him outta those, shove that cock in his hole, and make it expand when he wants but not a moment before. On his word. Knot me. Just imagining saying it, imagining the alpha's obedience, sends a hot, sticky rush through Bucky's chest. He's leaking even more now. He's sure. Thick, wet trails of it from his hole down his thighs.

Despite all that, Bucky isn't bothered outwardly. He's sitting pretty. He's sweating but not panting. He's leaking slick like a river, but he's not trembling. He's growling, not whimpering.

He's in control. And it tastes so good.

Conversely, Steve seems to be fucking savoring giving up control--the only part of him that's tense is his hands, grabbing but not preventing Bucky from moving. Just trying to hold on. His last grasp. Steve's head has lulled back, eyes fluttering shut, trying to open, and shutting again with every spark of pleasure. His muscles are limp otherwise. Panting. Barely tethered to earth.

And that tether is getting thinner by the minute. Thinner with every sinful roll of Bucky's hips again and again and again.

Fuck, yeah.

Another stupid sound comes out of Steve. He can't hold them in. How could he? His gut is tight, tight, tight. Boiling with flames. Those hips and, Jesus, that ass moves in a way that doesn't look real. That can't be real. It's so fucking pretty.

And not to mention, the back of Bucky's shorts are dretched. Steve can feel it through his own shorts. Bucky is leaking. Every shift of fabric makes a wet squelch. The sound is so obscene that Steve's cheeks are beating with his heart. Blushing impossibly hard. Bucky doesn't just sound wet--he sounds soaked, like if Steve were to put his fingers inside him, that hot, thick wetness would drip slowly down his palm and wrist. Fragrant and molten hot. Steve would, if Bucky would let him, lick a broad line up his slicked wrist and lap up every drop he shoved out of Bucky's hole with his fingers hard, deep thrusts.

A shiver rolls through Steve's thick muscles; it's not just a shiver, though, really, it's a convulsion.

On top of him, spread out in his lap, making it his thrown, Bucky laughs and bounces. He's not even riding his cock, they're just grinding, but he's bouncing! He's moving like he is riding.

God.

It drives Steve up the wall.

"You wanna put your cock in me, big alpha?" Bucky drawls against his lips, sizzling hot.

Steve whimpers.

He--

He didn't know he could make that sound. But, it definitely came out of him. Bucky wouldn't make a noise like that.

"Whaddya say?" Bucky tucks a strand of Steve's unruly hair behind his ear. And even that little touch is electric, so much so that Steve chases it. Starved for it. He tilts his chip up into the touch, wanting more. Burning for more. For anything.

"Yuh-yeah," the alpha stutters.

"Tsk tsk, now come on those aren't good manners," Bucky rumbles.

Steve immediately knows what he wants, and--

Fuck.

"Oh," Steve's brain whites out, "please." If he thought he was whimpering before, that was child's play. This is a whimper. "Please!"

Bucky tips his head to the side like he's considering it.

That bright, hot white flash in his head consumes him at the threat of not getting to shove his achy cock inside this glorious omega, "please, please, fuck, please I wanna put my cock in you," Steve tries harder, lips buzzing.

"You wanna squeeze your big fuckin' cock in my wet, tight little hole, hm?" Bucky purrs. "You wanna try? 'M not sure it's gonna fit!"

"Uh-huh, uh-huh," Steve chokes out, lost in it. Sounding just perfectly stupid. He's gonna try. He's gonna huff and puff and whine and moan and thrust and try. He's gonna try so fucking hard to work his cock into his wet hole. His hands bite into Bucky's ass now, shifting from his hips.

Bucky viciously kisses the stupid off his mouth with a wicked look.

Guh.

This is how Steve dies.

[luigiblood]

Some thoughts about Nintendo Switch Online retro games since last time

This is essentially going to be not much of a post but I guess I could talk about a few things about its future since with all the updates that we got since last time.

We'll talk about UI code, Pokémon, NES, Fire Emblem and N64.

UI code upgrade

Literally the next day since my last post about it, on March 16th, Nintendo added new NES, SNES and GB titles. Under the hood, they did do a massive change to the user interface programming, bringing pretty much every NSO app to the latest user interface codebase that GB and GBA NSO had.

That said it brings absolutely no visible changes, NERD has just made sure to bring everything up-to-date. This is just more stable and probably easier to program and manage UI code.

Pokémon Stadium 1 & 2

On April 12th, Nintendo released Pokémon Stadium to NSO + Expansion Pack, and with no Transfer Pak support.

Of course, what did I even expect since there's no old mainline Pokémon titles yet (if ever?).

My opinion about Pokémon on NSO is that it will get stuck to only spinoffs. My worst case realistic scenario (aside from no rerelease) is Pokémon Company selling the old gens at $15 piecemeal (yes, $5 more than on 3DS Virtual Console).

Personally I expect Pokémon Company to be very strict about Pokémon management, and those games are highly abusable with glitches, honestly and are kind of region locked, too to some extent especially between japanese and international players, but they still bothered to rerelease them and supporting them with a way to transfer your Pokémons out of the games. It's also abusable if you supported the Transfer Pak in Pokémon Stadium titles since they also work like extra boxes for your Pokémons and those support save states, which was explicitly removed out of the 3DS Virtual Console release...

They did also release Pokémon Stadium 2 this week, also without Transfer Pak support.

I did look at the emulator really quick and did find that they added new functions for Lua script hacking for the games, and it does kinda look like they rebuilt the entire thing from a new version at least.

I'll speak more about N64 emulation later.

Mystery Tower

Fast forwarding a bit, on June 6th, Nintendo added more NES, SNES and GB titles. One of them was Mystery Tower by Namco.

This bothered me, because I knew what this game was, but the title did absolutely not sound right. Turns out this title is actually brand new, they had this title in their collection, the original title was "BABEL" which is interesting since this means it is a first case of title change hacks on NSO. That said I did eventually find out that Japan also had a title change to "The Tower of Babel", which was also done in collections, but also the Wii U Virtual Console release!

Anyway please try this puzzle game, just keep in mind the direction and how you can turn around stuff based on how you face it.

Fire Emblem

On June 23rd, Nintendo released Fire Emblem for the GBA NSO app. But Japan also had Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade, the actual first GBA Fire Emblem title, as we only started to get these games since the second GBA title.

I'll refer to them as FE6 (The Binding Blade) and FE7 (Fire Emblem) from now on.

This update was interesting for a couple reasons.

It just so happens that the japanese version of FE7 can link to FE6's completed save files to unlock a couple things in the game.

So now, when you go into multiplayer, after the first player selects FE7, the second player is allowed to select either FE7, or FE6 for "Link Cleared Save Data" (official english text). Another player can simply share their save files to another player.

This also means that the GBA app now has the ability to load different games for each player depending on the choice of the first player who serves as the host.

(This screenshot is me messing around with the functionality.)

However this is not the only noteworthy thing to happen, because it wouldn't feel fair for a single player to not being able to transfer their own FE6 saves to FE7. Well, they did actually implement a hack for single player too!

They actually reimplemented the linking process inside the emulator just to avoid emulating a second GBA for it, and it would seamlessly transfer the save data just fine.

If you're wondering about what it unlocks, a quick read made me figure out that it skips Lyn's story, and add new scenes to the epilogue and other small additions as well. Those new epilogue scenes are available in the US version by default, but not in the EU versions for some reason. They can also be accessed in the JP version without a save transfer by finishing the game 9 to 11 times (what the heck).

This functionality working as it is really cool, honestly, and it makes a process less painful to do like it was back then, and it did make me feel confident in the transfer of data between games like with Golden Sun & Golden Sun: The Lost Age or the Zelda Oracle games... speaking of...

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages/Seasons

Those two games ended up randomly coming at the end of July this year. They are known for being two parts of a fuller story if you link each of them from whatever order you start them with.

And that's where my disappointment came in to remind me of the terrible reality that is Nintendo Switch Online.

It is doable for two players to share their save files to each other through multiplayer, but if you wanna do the games yourself on your own in single player, you'll have to input the password you get from the other game.

That is kinda sad considering it's the first player who selects the save file from the other player, it could have been very easy to setup in a way that's easy to use without needing to implement any specific user interface, but that didn't quite happen.

I hope they'll bother for Golden Sun considering the tiers of password this game can have with Golden Sun: The Lost Age, but I am starting to think if the game does offer a way to transfer without needing any additional work, they wouldn't do it. In the case of Fire Emblem, this way of save transfer was the only way to do it.

I did not mention much about this, but Oracle of Ages/Seasons are also known for having exclusive content if you play those games on a Game Boy Advance. After looking into it though, it does not seem like we're missing much, but it's kinda sad that they're not really in their most definitive way to play them.

Pokémon Trading Card Game

Two weeks after those last two games, Pokémon Trading Card Game and Pokémon Stadium 2 were released.

The cool thing about this game, is that they emulated the infrared communications.

At least, Card Pop does work, for sure, which does require emulation of the IR communcation... or does it?

Upon a quick inspection of the emulator code, I found out that the emulator does indeed patch the game ROM's functions, and thanks to the disassembled Pokémon Trading Card Game offering me a lot of information, I found out that they absolutely don't emulate the IR communications at all and outright replace the IR functions to point to a invalid 0xDD opcode (opcodes are small commands that CPU executes)... which probably points to a function in the emulator to specifically manage this. Ain't that funny? In any case though, they do at least let all IR communications work just fine, and that's what matters.

(For the nerds who wants to look this up, the emulator keeps SHA1 hashes of the ROM you can easily search for, then points to a struct of 100 bytes original to compare, 100 bytes to patch, address, size, and something else I don't get.)

I ended up looking this up as someone pointed me to this video:

It turns out in the original game, one of the cards, the Phantom Venusaur, is impossible to obtain due to a mistake in the calculations of the odds, on which this video explains very well in detail.

This is the reason that motivated me to look at how the emulator might patch the game, and see if they fixed this issue: They did not fix this problem, I see no patch for any of the relevant code for this.

So, NERD, if you're reading this, look at 06:5D92, you can definitely fix this in one way or another.

N64 emulation

So... the Pokémon Stadium 2 release at least updated the emulator in some way, because they added new functions for the Lua scripting for N64 game hacks, and some of the UI engine stuff got shuffled around.

Then I tried some of the games, to see if some things got fixed:

F-Zero X did NOT get its framerate drop fixed.

Goldeneye's Dam level has texture tiling fixed. Interesting.

Since I noticed this last thing, it was pointed to Graslu00 who knows the game in and out and already compared the emulation of the game on NSO and Xbox... to a disappointing degree.

Here's his thread about the fixes... or rather the lack of: https://twitter.com/Graslu00/status/1688994099477528576

The update did also some additional fixes to Pokémon Stadium 1, though I don't really know much about it other than it relates to rendering and soft reset in some way.

Unfortunately the N64 emulator is still not up to snuff, but I think the most annoying thing is still the controls. The default controls suck, let us change them in the emulator, per game! Offer also better stick emulation!

It still pains me to rely on the Switch OS remap feature, it's not good for this, it messes too much with some of the macros, it sucks!

It annoys me when I see the text "Change Control Method" in the emulator files too, you guys clearly thought about it! Why isn't it a feature after months with nothing?

Future releases

There's still a couple N64 games left that were explicitly announced for 2023, such as 1080° Snowboarding, Excitebike 64 and Mario Party 3.

That said Japan also had plans for release of Harvest Moon 64 (which I see no reason why we can't get it now that Harvest Moon SNES got released since), but also Goldeneye 007, on which Japan has it on the highest age rating (CERO Z).

Considering how the plans are going and how lazy everything is (sorry devs, I'm sure you guys know already, but most of the results of this just don't impress me and don't fill me with confidence aside from GB/GBA somehow), I just think N64 NSO will randomly get a 18+ rating and put every N64 game under parental control bullshit out of nowhere with no warning for Japan.

Also, where's the alternate languages for NES and SNES games?

[akwardlyuncool]

Sitting To Know You Collection May Roundup

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Sitting To Know Your Collection: Week 19  (May 6th - May 12th)

Album: Duality (2015) by Set It Off  

Play Count: 3

Top 2 Tracks: 

Tomorrow ft. Jason Lancaster (Track 9)

Bleak December (Track 10) 

I’ve been spotty with Set It Off for the last few years and coming back to this album in particular after hearing some of the critiques, it was a little much. I’m just gonna say it, I knew every word to this whole misogynistic album. To be fair not every song is misogynistic, some of them just feature nice guy syndrome hahaha (Looking at you Bad Guy.) To be extra for real though, cause I wasn’t lying, I sang along and had fun with all of it like I was back in the summer of 2015, but I acknowledged the mess this time and that’s what made me think a little bit. It’s like watching your favorite 2000’s rom-com, you know what’s up. 

Sitting To Know Your Collection: Week 20  (May 13th - May 19th)

Album: Without Fear (The Complete Edition) (2020) by Dermot Kennedy 

Play Count: 2

Top 2 Tracks: 

Outnumbered (Track 10) 

Days Like This (Track 17) - Cover

I love this man’s voice so much and that’s why I’m sad it only got 2 very choppy listens. The complete version is like 70/80 minutes long and that’s why I struggled. I randomly saw a clip of a live performance he did years ago and the love has been there ever since. Now that particular song he preformed supposedly got reworked and changed into a different song on this album and the original only lives on YouTube. I'm mad hurt on that one, however the album is still really good and I'm not letting that sour my opinion at all. It’s a little moody and hopeful, but also very questioning. Y’all know how British rain sounds lol. I haven’t listened to his latest release yet, but I still can’t recommend him enough though. Trust me when I say this is a NEED to check out. 

Sitting To Know Your Collection: Week 21  (May 20th - May 26th)

Album: Stay Inside (2018) by Elder Brother 

Play Count: 4

Top 2 Tracks: 

I Don’t Miss You (Track 7)

Battle (Track 8) 

Elder Brother reminds me of fall 2019 and when I put this album on I’m just reminded of how good that moment was. (Little did I know what this album foretold.) If you need to feel comforted while you’re laying in bed or just walking around the house, this is a great choice. Tracks 6-9 are such a good run of songs that I can’t recommend them enough. I tried to pick songs that weren’t already my favorite as my top tracks so I highly recommend you check these out. If you’re unaware, look into this side project of Kevin from The Story So Far and Dan from Daybreaker, you will be pleasantly surprised. And if you are aware, listen again. 

Sitting To Know Your Collection: Week 22  (May 27th - June 2nd)

Album: Moonlight (2019) by Johnnyswim

Play Count: 2

Top 2 Tracks: 

Flowers (Track 7)

Lost In Translation (Track 4) 

I think this series is really forcing me to listen to these library discards cause this is the fourth one it’s shot out at me. I needed to listen to them anyway but this pushes me a little bit more. I knew one song from this album previously, so I was mostly going in unaware. Not of the group though, just the album. I’m usually pretty quickly drawn to Johnnyswim, but this one had to grow on me. If I’d gotten more listens in I feel like I could be more confident in it. It’s just not that strong off those first few listens. That being said, although it’s not my favorite album of theirs it’s still pretty decent and worth checking out if you like their stuff. Soulful pop-y kind of music. 

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I haven't been updating the playlist that's supposed to go along with this series, but I'm changing that and will include it at the end of these updates. Will include spoilers, but thanks to checking it out anyway.

The Playlist!

[pom-seedss]

Art Booth....Mild Success!

So! I did my first event!

We got rained out after an hour and a half.

I didn't get to set up my table the way I wanted to, and have to rearrange for next time.

I only got 1 sale, and it was an item that I wasn't intending to sell (my business card holder, a rainbow shark). It was the first piece I ever painted, and brought him just for extra table flaire.

But someone was so desperate to have him that they came back to the table when we were packing up and asked again if he could have the shark. I started hmming and hawing but realized that without this I wouldn't have gotten a single sale....

.... but more than that the shine in the guy's eye looking at Bruce just made me melt. Bruce was not my best piece, the yellow and the purple of the rianbow were pretty washed out by my standards, and I never actually did INSIDE the mouth but there were some weird paint splotches in it.

So I made sure he was looked over throughly before accepting, and then the guy read the full phrase on the shark for the first time (Be Proud, Be You... Or Bite them) and cracked up. I was going to say I would give him Bruce for $40, but the guy shoved $50 at me and said "Your others were $40, and this guy is bigger, so $50 seems fair!" (Bruce was NOT bigger or more expensive than the other figures I had) and basically just skipped away with the shark after that before I could protest.

I had a bunch of Scene-type kids oogle my stuff and make so many jokes to one another, it was nice.

It was a nice day out.

I am fucking exhausted, coupled with a bit of a cry-for-Isolde session at the end of the night (ya ha that lasted like an hour and a half) my chest hurts SO BADLY right now because of all the activity. (Like muscle sore, not lung-sore if you get my drift?)

I have another event this week on Saturday, I have so much to shuffle around and re-plan. I am glad I started with the super small event though, there were like... maybe 100 people ish at the event, not all of whom came to peruse my wears, but it was enough to set up and figure things out a little. Also it takes a little over an hour to set things up, I hope to get that time down next time though.

....Okay now I have in my head that I have to shout "Fine Dwarven Crafts, Straight From Orzamar" at least once in my next booth. Please talk me out of that. I don't even have any Dragon Age themed things.

Anyway! For anyone who wanted to know how it went!

Mild success!

[crystalelemental]

"books-are-my-life-stuff: Maybe SS Leon, SS Cyrus, and Classic Elesa are meant to give people the illusion of "oh yeah Pokefairs might get a rerun or they might not" to make people more willing to pull for them, I dunno. I don't want for banners to get overwhelmingly dense every month than they already are, but I also want a rerun of the old pairs...it's confusing."

I think it's one of those challenging decisions, in the sense of yes, you want to enforce the idea of scarcity and FOMO, pull now to avoid potential calamity, so some have to go a while. But Masters takes absurdly long times to rerun some things, so much so that it has to be preventing profits when pairs that good get sidelined. Maybe it's because people only need one pair for them to function? SS Cyrus and C!Elesa, I mean. They're really fine at 1/5, so maybe that factors in? I couldn't say. But I think frequent reruns of older, well liked PokeFairs is a good way to address both the need for reruns and the increasing number of limited pairs. People don't really like Variety, but they would love some extra reruns. But then your whales don't spend much. So is that worthwhile from the company perspective? Without knowing more about the insider information, it's really hard to say what the correct call is on that front, but I do think reruns can be easily managed and not be a problem. But if the Mix Scout is anything to go by, given the presence of Variety Giovanni, Rei, H!Phoebe, and...the fourth one I forgot, they're more likely to rerun the really good stuff under that paid scout. Which is Not Great!

"books-are-my-life-stuff: I'm surprised they didn't mention 4/5 and 5/5 grids which I think also had a fair amount of controversy. A comment said those grids are optional and often not needed, but some units, like OG Gloria and OG Diantha, have pretty crucial grids that help them to catch up with modern units or patch up their glaring flaws. I still don't like it. EX roles did improve SS Serena and Paulo, but the introduction of it in master fair paid gems ruins it for me too I think."

I was always more positive on 5/5 than most, but then I had the means to make it work. I can see people getting upset with something like Gloria for sure. Her 3/5 sucks, and she doesn't get much until at least 4/5. But that's a higher investment than should be needed. In part, it's a matter of expectation. Had 5/5 grids always been there, I don't think anyone would bat an eye, just be mildly annoyed at all the good tools being at max investment, like how we get slightly annoyed when a pair only has good traits at 3/5. But I do think that this is easily circumvented. Take Cynthia and Lance, for example. As the only pairs with both 3/5 and 5/5 expansions, you get the sense that 3/5 is where all the traits to make them super strong went, and 5/5 is utility to make them easier to use. Even Diantha, good as she is, follows that pattern. You can actually deal better damage with all three with just 3/5 and pushing more power into sync, so they're far from unusable. Gloria's the odd one out, in that...had her tools been 3/5, I don't think anyone would've cared. But because it's only 5/5, it's damning. If she had a 3/5, and it also had good powerup tools? I think she'd be less of a problem. And the 5/5 tools felt like a nice incentive for whales; I've liked having them available, anyway. It was the least intrusive monetization angle they pulled, with the most benefit for players who bothered favoring a character that hard.

The EX Roles are also a bit an issue of presentation. I think his point of, if they hadn't done paid only Master Fairs for cake? People probably would've been fine. It's a neat mechanic! Maybe a little grumbling from people like me who wanted it to be customized and more available to older pairs, but far from the level of irritation. I actually love the PokeFair angle; that also feels fair and great. PokeFairs now come with rewards for pulling, and they have the added draw of "Why don't you go to 5/5 for the full cake?" incentive. They've had some really good ideas that are mutually beneficial. They're just wrapped around...really questionable ones, often interspersed with the good, and it muddies the waters.

[infiniteorangethethird]

Hellooooo hi, I'm too lazy to scroll yeah

Can you tell me a bit about your paracosm? :3

A bit? Nope, sorry, no can do, I can only tell you a metric fuck TON about my paracosm. Hope ur prepared for an infodump >:)

Sooooo uh. There’s a lot to talk abt (because I don’t know how to shut up) so let me break it up a little. Setting-wise, the story’s set in a fantasy version of Earth, where the most important difference (aside from the presence of magic) is that if someone writes a story and enough people read it, the story becomes real in a parallel dimension. I originally thought of this as a way to explain how my OCs could meet with the characters from my favorite shows/books, nowadays it’s both a mechanic that facilitates the story and (recently more frequently) the focus and source of conflict.

Because of the setting, aside from the numerous stolen characters from other media and reworked versions of said stolen characters, there’s obviously a lot of magic going around with a fuckton of places to visit and even more magical species to populate the world and wield said magic – “angels”, demons, shapeshifters, monsters, gods, you name it. Most of my paras are non-human and those who are also tend to have non-human ancestry or some kind of extra magical power (what’s the point of fantasy without fantasy, yknow?). But also, because I have a weird obsession with Organizing and Putting Things In Boxes, I have the physics of magic worked out to an absurd detail, feel free to shoot me an ask abt it if you want to be bored to death :D

Plot-wise… well. I would summarize the story, I actually HAVE a pretty decent summary, but it’s like, 100+ pages (50k+ words if I recall correctly), and I’m pretty sure tumblr would not Like That (and this version’s not even up to date), so. There used to be a lot of exploration of the world (aka me integrating my current interests into my paracosm because I can), nowadays it’s a lot more character-focused, with the plot revolving around 15-ish “main” paras and their lives. Which can be anything from “I can finally go to college and study the stuff I wanna study! Yay!” to “oh god oh fuck I’m a general in a multidimensional war and thousands are dead if I make the wrong move” so. There’s a lot of throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. (I am a sucker for big epic fights tho so that happens a lot lol)

Thematically, I like to focus on the inner worlds of my paras and how they relate to the world around them. Each of them come from different backgrounds with different perspectives so any time I wanna explore a concept I can just pick whoever falls closest to that (like, “oh THIS one was abandoned by their family but THIS one is a stable father figure, found family trope go brrr” just to name an example). There’s a lot of hurt/comfort generally speaking, heavy on the emotional angst and, because I’m a secret whump enjoyer, there also tends to be a lot of blood. Like a lot. (Dw I always balance it out with some old-fashioned “finding peace in each other’s presence” daydreams, especially soft and cuddly.) Oh yeah and also everyone’s gay but that’s pretty much expected at this point.

Sometimes I also like to wonder about the morality of certain aspects of this universe, since the setting and world is so different from ours, but ig that’s a topic for another day haha

Anyway yeah that’s as short as I could get it 😅 it’s a bit hard to talk about my paracosm as a whole because it’s so old and as a result incredibly widespread. I do have a sideblog dedicated to it but tbh I haven’t really touched it in ages so what little info it has is probably outdated. Idk what else to say, if there’s any part you’d want me to go into greater detail feel free to ask (I know ppl mostly only care about the paras which, fair, but when it comes to talking abt my paracosm practically any topic is free for the asking lol), and sorry for the long ramble haha

Bonus doodle of one of my paras (Rowena) I did like a day ago

[clatterbane]

Apparently Husqvarna doesn't just make chainsaws. Who knew? Besides, presumably, pretty much everybody in Sweden. 😅

On the plus side of these current appliance woes, Mr. C had been talking about wanting to get a bigger fridge for a while now. Preferably one of the side-by-side models, which I hadn't considered. Partly because I never lived in a household where that might even be a semi-affordable option before.

We do tend to keep a decent amount of food around, and he has always been super bothered by fridge crowding. And I know I keep driving him up the wall with the amount of shit I'm happy enough Tetrising in there.

He is well aware that with this own extreme "out of sight, out of mind" variation, if he can't see the thing he wants immediately near the front of a shelf? He is liable to just shut the door and walk away without the food. Which, fair enough. I have more tolerance (and frankly stubbornness) with rummaging around and keeping some vague idea of what I personally put in there somewhere. But, no wonder we always have ended up with so many things--especially that he has brought in--lurking toward the back of the fridge and going bad.

If he thinks we can afford what they're wanting for side-by-side models, why not. I wouldn't be sorry to have the extra space, and certainly intend to try not to cram that to full capacity the same way.

This store is looking like a pretty good option, if primarily because they are apparently handling all the deliveries/installations at the store level. Even if you order an appliance online, they will apparently ship it to a nearby store location where they will then contact you to set up delivery.

It seemed like areasonable plan to go in person to try and get something that's already in stock at one of their local stores, and hopefully be at least one step ahead with getting it delivered ASAP.

And that way we should hopefully also not need to worry about their contracting the delivery out to DPD or fucking Bring--who, if they even show up, would likely dump the new one out at the parking lot and take off without hauling the busted one away even when you have paid for that service too. 👿 Speaking from some experience trying to get larger items delivered, yeah.

But anyway, this Husqvarna Not-Chainsaw is looking like a decent possible option. As much as Poverty Brain blenches at the cost of any of them. There are some in stock at one of their locations in town. I would probably go for a stainless finish over the white, tbh, but this would match better with the rest of the existing kitchen stuff.

ETA: I forgot to add that this also appears to be separate narrowish fridge and freezer units sold together with the option to be used side by side, rather than one piece. Tacks a little extra onto the price, but that way you also don't have to replace the whole side-by-side unit whenever one side fails. Like happened for us to need a replacement at all. 😑

[lilyliveredlittlerichboy]

i remember getting glasses at 10 years old and being one of a fair handful of kids in my class to wear glasses. but over time, all the other kids (even the boys) ended up trading their glasses for contact lenses.

i also remember watching this documentary about eye sight and these new experimental contact lenses that you could wear overnight and then you wouldn't need your glasses during the day.

the woman they were following in their case study said something along the lines of, glasses just feel like a mask, like im hiding my face, so this is perfect cus I can see without them :)

I remember her also wearing a full face of makeup. So did the girls in my class once they traded in their glasses for contacts.

It doesn't make any sense to me at all. I tried glasses and contacts and makeup and in the end just opted for my glasses. it takes 2 seconds to put them on or take them off, and i can choose a cool frame that vibes with my vibes. I felt naked with contacts! They're also a full on annoying bother, it definitely takes at least a minute to put them in (which might be less if you're practiced at putting them in every day, but still will never beat my 2 second total for glasses), putting them in and taking them out is awkward cus you have to touch your literal eyeball, which like, doesn't feel like something you should be doing, really. some variants are reusable, but you have to wash them; the others just go right into the bin, which is wasteful.

and the makeup. the makeup!!! i have never understood it. I've managed to do nice makeup on myself with and without glasses and really I would rather just not do any at all. It is an even more bothersome annoyance than contact lenses. even if you're just doing the basic stuff, it takes far far longer than 2 seconds. And then you'll be leaving makeup marks on your clothes, your friends clothes, your pillow, your face mask and etc etc etc

All im saying is all the people who are using contacts and makeup are really stealing their own time and for what. to look prettier? to have other people's approval? im plenty pretty with glasses and no makeup and actually that means on the (EXCEEDINGLY RARE) occasions that I'll wear makeup, perhaps even contacts, it'll really pop and be a big difference and surprise to people. please be more confident in your bodies. show your acne scars and imperfections and your moles and dimples and unevenness of your skin. we see enough perfectly smooth models and actors which have been photoshopped into oblivion. please just show your real face i promise it'll be fine you will not die and in fact you might give someone else the confidence to show their bare skin. it's so fucking rare these days especially amongst cis women (who are also weirdly the ones most loudly complaining about society's pressures of femininity???? pick one lmao)

anyway being pretty isnt all there is to life. all that time spent putting in contacts and applying makeup. u could have scrolled tumblr instead like a true weirdo. or done literally anything else. i mostly use my extra time in the morning for sleeping a bit longer (which is good for ur skin, unlike the vastvastvast majority of foundations u can put on ur face)

[wizard-of-interesting-failure]

Start from the beginning? Sure.

First off, I wouldn't call myself a specialist, exactly. I do know a fair bit about summoning, but I tend to be in the business of knowing a lot about EVERYTHING but not actually doing all that much. Oh I try things, don't get me wrong, but once I've gotten them mostly working I'll just document and move on.

Anyway, this sometimes puts me in a unique position to figure out cross-discipline stuff, which brings us to why you're here. You wanna know about mutual summoning contracts, you need to start by understanding why we switched to them in the first place.

See, a couple centuries back, there was this spate of real nasty magical killings, right? Like, REAL nasty. I won't get into the details, but we're talking tons of powerful, complex curses. More than we thought the entire wizard population was capable of casting at the time. We were right about that, of course, but back then we mostly thought of ourselves as the only real players in the supernatural space.

Which honestly never made a lot of sense to me. I mean, we had summoners, right? What were they summoning if not other powerful magical beings? Summoners themselves would say that their summons were either mindless beasts or couldn't affect our dimension without their explicit say-so. But then what did they get up to the rest of the time? Nobody really seemed to care, as long as they did their job while they were here.

Anyway. The killings. I wasn't really an expert, like I said, but I did like to experiment. Common wisdom was that you'd forbid summoned entities from speaking. Yes, really! It was seen as the only way to avoid the classic "deal with the devil" pitfall; if your summon could talk, it was assumed to be controlling you and both of you were annihilated on sight. And nobody could really figure out anything about their home plane, since it required a mix of summoning, divination, and dimensionalism which you couldn't actually make a career out of in any meaningful way.

Oh! The killings, yes. So there we were, way too many mutilated wizard corpses on our hands, no real trends to speak of. Or so it seemed at first. See, the deaths were pretty uniformly distributed, but one of the wizard detectives noticed that all the worst curses seemed to have hit summoners. The summoners themselves freaked out, of course. Not only did something seem to be targeting them, but the use of summoned entities to mass cast the curses could explain where all this supposed extra wizard power was coming from.

It didn't seem likely, the summoning quantity required was huge, but the alternatives all seemed downright impossible. The entire summoning community descended into paranoia, everyone suspecting their colleagues of brewing some kind of plot against the whole discipline. Nobody wanted to keep performing summoning. The killings slowed down, but didn't stop.

So I tried experimenting, since that's what I do. Small things, at first; minor summons with safety precautions other than total domination. Relaxed speech restrictions. Early attempts at conversation, incredibly guarded on both sides; me believing I was being manipulated, the summon seemingly trying to give away as little as possible while being as hostile as it felt it could get away with under my diminished bindings, both sides feeding into distrust of the other. Eventually, one let something slip about a war.

I pressed for details, of course, but forcing these entities to talk was famously tricky. After all, you generally didn't WANT them talking; research into compelling them to had essentially stopped centuries ago. Nobody cared, and the summons themselves clearly didn't want to talk either. So I decided to go straight to the source, instead. I decided to try scrying the dimension I'd summoned this fellow from (and I WAS beginning to think of them as fellows, though I still suspected a plot to manipulate me at this point)

The story of getting THAT to work could be a whole other tale in itself, but we've been here long enough already. Suffice it to say, there was a lot of legwork involved and I had a lot of help from wizards who were both smarter and more experienced in their disciplines than I was. Eventually, one fateful night alone in my tower, something clicked and I was suddenly looking at an abstract representation of activity in just the right part of just the right dimension, just barely translatable as speech in the sense you or I could understand it.

See, it turned out that these entities had been sitting impotently on a millennia-long grudge against our summoners, first for what seemed to them to be reneging on perfectly reasonable agreements and then for pressing them into service against their will. That is, until one of their magical researchers, almost my counterpart in a way, had figured out how to bridge the dimensional gap in the other direction. They had declared war, we had categorically prevented them from communicating with us, so they just started cursing any summoner they had a grievance with, hitting related wizards from other disciplines partly for revenge, partly out of spite, and partly to cover their tracks.

While I was still struggling to process this, the discussion turned to what to do about ME. I'll admit, I panicked. I thought they were gonna start cursing at any moment, and I could barely see what they were saying, let alone interfere with it. So I did the only thing I could think of: I summoned as many of them as I could, as fast as I could. With no protection or communication frameworks in place. Summoning usually isn't time-sensitive on the order of seconds, but it sure as hell felt like it was then.

They were utterly baffled at first, which probably saved my life, but that only lasted a few seconds. The spell I was using to scry had a translation component, so in theory we could communicate, but it was bundled in with everything else and barely functional; I didn't know how to use it. I basically just "threw it into reverse" and yelled into it, which I was told later produced the equivalent of screeching gibberish with "HARM MEAN NO" somewhere in the middle. We all paused for another few seconds, me with no idea what the hell I'd just said and them probably trying to figure out how anything could be so inarticulate, and then they slowly, agonisingly slowly, lowered themselves to sit on the couch I had nearby, staring all the while.

The next few hours were kind of a blur, and I wasn't involved for most of it. I got in contact with someone from the council that we'd arranged to try and get this whole mess working (after crudely communicating the basics of the situation to my new "guests"), they woke up everyone else, the translation spell was quickly refined, one of the inter-council diplomats was repurposed, I passed all my spell notes over to the council's dimensionalist and the spell's "chat log" over to the diplomat, and then went and got some much-needed sleep.

The rest is history, really. Luckily the wizards they'd started out cursing were the biggest assholes and they themselves considered the whole thing to have been a stupid misunderstanding, so relations normalised remarkably quickly. We had a few urgent upkeep tasks that required summoned entities, so we worked out some preliminary agreements to tend to those.

I passed along a number of ad hoc requests to the entities I managed to build up a rapport with over the next few weeks, others established their own lines of communication, eventually that process was formalised into the mutual contract structures we have today (ending what would come to be known as the "I Know An Entity" era), these entities became the first to join the Interdimensional Embassy, progress marched on. Freedom and prosperity for all, at least until the next major fuckup.

I hope that covered everything you needed to know. Good luck with your history assignment; send me a copy when you're done?

You are a wizard that specializes in summoning magic. Unlike other summoners that forcefully bind otherworldly creatures to do their bidding, you are the eldritch equivalent of “I know a guy”.