#but I ended with so many birds that those categories will be getting their own post

[yeoldenews]

A selection of birds from various 17th and 18th century calligraphy copybooks which were drawn with single lines to practice (and show off) penmanship strokes.

[annadiplosis]

A few months ago I posted a couple photos of my index cards, saying I still didn’t know how and where I’d keep them, and I’ve since developed an Archiving System that combines the cards with a digital spreadsheet and has taken more hours than I will ever admit.

So, since I don’t have a “notebook system” to speak of, I'd like to share the way I archive my journals / sketchbooks / whatever you wanna call them, because I’m very proud of it, and who knows, someone might find it helpful :)

WHY I NEED AN ARCHIVING SYSTEM

The reason I don’t have a notebook system is because I use my books for absolutely everything, from sketches to grocery lists and journaling. It is crucial to me to not have any restrictions or expectations when it comes to my books, and that’s how I’ve managed to fill 43 of them over the years.

But of course, when you’ve been using notebooks without a system for most of your life and you want to read a specific entry, you can easily spend a full hour flipping through a sea of paper until you stumble upon those notes on the Bubonic Plague you took in 2011 or whatever you were trying to find.

SO HERE’S WHAT I DO

When I finish a notebook, I try to determine what its most important contents are: stuff I might want to reference in the future (project ideas, meeting notes) or is very characteristic of a period in my life (friends' drawings, travel logs). Every single page contributes to making the notebook what it is and gives it a unique personality, but not all of them are gonna be keepers, and that's fine (I'd even say fundamental, at least in my case).

These are the extremely generic categories I sort my Chosen Entries into. It's similar to the dot system so many people use, just applied retroactively:

🟣 Study notes 🔵 Work 🟢 Personal 🟡 Projects 🔴 Misc

And here's where the real archiving begins. This info goes into:

1. THE INDEX CARDS

(I always write them in Catalan; this one's a mockup and most of these are not real entries)

A little piece of cardboard with the notebook number, its start and end dates, and most important contents. I keep each index card inside its corresponding notebook, either in its own backpocket or an adhesive one I stick there myself.

This way, whenever I want to take a quick look through the book, I get a general idea of its contents at first glance. Sometimes, just holding it in my hand and reading the index card brings me back to the time when I was keeping it, and that time-travel feeling gives me a rush like no other. I don't know if you can tell, but I'm crazy about my notebooks.

2. THE SPREADSHEET

Same as before, just a couple more pieces of info (number of months, physical description) added to a file with the rest of my notebooks' data. Again, these are not real entries for privacy and language reasons, but they're very similar to the kind of stuff I do keep. The spreadsheet helps me find specific entries with a simple ctrl+f, and it's also a bird's-eye view of my progress through the years as a notebook keeper. I can see when my interests shift, how long some of my most important projects took to come to fruition, and even similar types of entries that repeat every few years which I wasn't even aware of before putting it all together. Absolutely fascinating stuff.

I hope this was useful, or interesting at the very least! If you’re a notebook keeper trying to find their own archiving system, my main advice would be to start early so you don’t have to deal with almost two decades of material like I did :’)

If you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask.

Good luck 🖤

[citruslullabies]

Hola! I have not bad idea for u…

What if DogDay caught Y/N self-harming.? Something in the spirit of blood, but with a fluff at the end. It would be very interesting to read…

Thanks..✍️

I can do that!

Trigger warnings: ‼️HEAVY TRIGGER WARNINGS‼️BLOOD, SELF HARM, THOUGHTS OF SUICIDE AND DETAILED SKIN TRAUMA‼️ STOP READING NOW IF YOU ARE UNCOMFORTABLE BY THIS BY ANY MEANS! I AM NOT LIABLE IF YOU CONTINUE, KNOWING THESE ARE TRIGGERS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Romantic/platonic: unspecified

Requested by: anonymous

Category: HEAVY. ANGST. READ WARNINGS.

Ship (romantic or platonic): Dogday x reader

Word count: 677

Leave My Skin to Rest

After the situation at Playco with fighting for your life and saving others, your mental health seemed to rapidly decline.

You knew you were safe and sound, but you knew many weren't as fortunate as you. And that hurt worse than you thought it would. The employees and children, the critters, the teachers. Every single one of them hadn't made it out alive, yet you did by some lucky shot at luck with a day you missed. The guilt weighed on you like nothing else had.

It was wrong to think this way, and you knew that. You hated yourself for making it out alive when many others didn't and a part of you wishes that you hadn't missed that dreadful day.

So the punishment for your survival and beating heart was on your skin, whether that be showers that are hotter than you can handle or squeezing your skin until it hurts, maybe even cutting or pulling hair out. Right now you were pinching your skin between your long fingernails that needed to be cut, as you started to lack self care and didn't find the means to cut them if you didn't chew on them. You were sitting on your bed with your trembling hand digging at the sensitive skin on your arms, pinching and picking while blood profusely tried to escape your body and trickle down.

Tears escaped your eyes, sniffling as you looked down at your poor skin. So red from irritation and blood, your fingers that kept doing the actions repeatedly were the same. You stared at the skin that looked as if it was rotting with birds pecking at it with a feeling of regret, like a sensation of feeling as if you deserved this for simply living while many had not.

You had saved a few, sure. But what's a few compared to thousands? It simply couldn't compare. You had spiraled down a hole like Alice and you couldn't get yourself out no matter the methods of trying to forget in a healthy way of trying to cope, you always came back to step one. And that was punishing your body for still existing instead of rotting.

Your breath hitched as you heard the click of your door, quickly trying to hide your arm as you saw a large canine walk in with a plate of dinner since you had missed their calls for you to come out, it looked like omelets. With some egg shells in it but omelets. You slowly looked up at Dogday, gulping and forcing a smile as well as you could. “H-hey.. can you just set the plate down? I'll eat it in a minute.” You spoke softly.

Your large companion nodded, smiling as he walked over despite your wishing for him to set it down on the desk beside your door. His tail was wagging, so he clearly made it and was excited for you to try it… but it seemed to slow down and stiffen up when he smelled something that was sadly familiar to his nose. “... Angel?” He asked softly.

He continued to sniff the air, watching you become nervous and awkward before he found the source. His eyes widened and he immediately panicked, taking your arm into his delicate paws to gaze upon it and think of a solution for your aching. “(Your name)!? What- what happened to you? Did you do this? Why?” He asked, his mind buzzing with questions as he hesitantly touched your wounds with a desire to heal them. He knew your skin was littered in scars, but he never knew any of them were your own personal doing. But those questions were what broke you; your normal upbeat persona had fallen and you were silent, before sniffling and breaking down. His soft fur caught your tears as you explained everything. He rubbed your back and shushed you, carefully taking you to the restroom and bandaging you up as he continued to let you cry against him.

He wanted you to know that everything would be alright.

Thank you for requesting!

If you ever feel this way please call a national suicidal helpline, which is the number 9-8-8 I believe. You are not alone. And you are loved.

[correctproseka]

An essay on autistic Mafuyu

Coming from a very autistic person.

Mafuyu has a bunch of autism symptoms, but a lot of them can also be explained by other reasons, such as her upbring and trauma, but not all of them, so I'm going to start speaking about the explainable by other things traits and move up to "boy you're tism". (Notw that the trauma explanation can also have a pre-disposition to happen due to tism)

In the biggest "can be explained by her trauma" category, we actually have the biggest reason people headcanon her as autistic. Her Alexithymia. Which is just a fancy word for "can't recognize her own feelings". No i did not have to copy paste that name to not write it wrong. Yes, many autistic people are bad at recognizing their own feelings, me included. But we also have to note that Mafuyu absolutely hid away those feelings for a mask and because they were needs not being met, a "good girl" like her doesnt get sad or angry right? Thats what made her push down those feelings so much she just ended up.. numb. Its extremely common in depression as well as autism which made me personally not realize i was depressed until someone made me put it into words, it was similar to my normal.

Theres also her.. exquisite vocabulary, Mafuyu uses lots of fancy terms sometimes, which is very stereotypical white boy autism. But also, she was pushed books down her throat by her mom since she was a child, she was expected to be this "fancy" and "smart-sounding". So she is.

Observant. Mafuyu doesn't talk a lot, she observes. She can recognize things on others sometimes, but mostly about the environment, which can be an autism noticing a bird singing 5 blocks away or a trauma "i need to notice this or i get fucked" reaction.

Mafuyu as mentioned, tends to listen more than speak, I am personally not this kind of autism, but it exists, Mafuyu is quiet, listening and only speaking when she feels her input is needed. This can be simply a mixture of autism and trauma. She doesn't feel the need to speak, so she doesn't, why would she waste her energy like that? Smh.. but also her good girl mask is supposed to be a good listener, not much of a yapper.

Now we are starting to move onto the things she does that are less explained by trauma and more explained by tism. Which is my favorite part to analyze.

Parallel play: Mafuyu seeks comfort with being with niigo and working alongside them, she doesn't even need to be talking, as seen by the kitty event where she kept just listening to them on earphones, she just wants to be near her people and gets calmed down by being with them.

Bluntness. As an autistic person i am extremely blunt in wrong situations, and can easily not recognize its the wrong situation. Per example Mafuyu's "why dont you imagine you're gonna get killed if you dont do it in half an hour" or all the times she points something out to Ena and gets a scream back because it was the wrong time? Mafuyu says what she thinks and when out of the mask she really. Really. Lacks a filter, because she doesn't know when or what she's supposed to speak or not

She.. kind of needs people to say the obvious? Sometimes she doesnt realize whats going on, why she's reacting in a way, so and so. One of the reasons Mizuki had to tell her it's ok to run away. Mafuyu never considered it. It wasn't obvious for her like it would be for a lot of people, she's kind of very oblivious in emotional matters like that, and needs someone (coughs usually Mizuki) to explain something to her

There's probably more but im doing this in like 15 minutes.

Plus, all in all, she makes autistic people like me really relate to her, even if they can be mostly explained by trauma doesnt mean she doesn't show those signs or that they're only because of that, even the mask she uses is a known neurodivergent thing.

[pumpkin-spike18]

✨Weekly Progress #52✨ +Happy New Year 2025 ✨

So I survived another year...!

Some extra self-promotion here, but I'm running a raffle on bsky as thanks for 500+ followers!

The winner will receive a half body full illustration of whatever character they choose! To enter, follow me on bsky and repost the the raffle announcement!

Now... onto the weekly stuff! c:

Weekly Progress 2024 #52

Sketched Winter Jam full BG

Finished celebration art

Posted devlogs

Finished Winter Jam BG

Put together Winter Jam test animation

SWAK music writeup + discussion

Went through VA roster

Updated SWAK Jam schedule

Sent in Winter Jam files

Participated in Meet and Greet

Drafted End of Year Writeup

Drafted VA lines

Provided expressions list

Provided CG info writeup

Made base marketing schedule

Looking back at 2024 ⏳

It's been a year of ups and downs. Of trying new things, of failing, and getting back up again.

The Results of 2024 Goals

Finish SYVNH ✔

Finish BWOBK ❌

24 Illustrations ✔

Write a happy story ❌

Getting Bingo ❌

My biggest accomplishment this year is definitely completing Stuck in a Yandere Visual Novel...HELP!!

This was finished in May, but somehow it feels like a lifetime ago... The full story is 84k+ words, which is definitely the longest (finished) story I've written.

In this coming year, I hope I can get some merch completed for the game, and maybe redo some of the art since I think I've improved since I started development back in 2022.

I did "finish" 24 illustrations for 2024, but I might've cheated a bit based on my original intentions. In 2023, I said "24 illustrations not used in Visual Novels." This year, I didn't add the latter requirement, but I had intended to follow it.

However, come December, I was short 4 illustrations. Coincidentally, I completed 3 CGs for Spooktober and 1 animation for Winter Jam. Since I didn't have that criteria, I decided to add it into the count.

(The animation was too big and had to be uploaded as two files, thus pushing the last image to another row.)

...And now what I didn't succeed in :(

I accomplished 6 items, but they were not bingo. I only have myself to blame for making one of the requirements "10 VN BGs" 😂 Honestly some of these goals were so difficult, I'm surprised I managed to succeed in any of them.

I am quite sad that I couldn't finish much fanart for my favorite vtubers. I thought it'd be easy, but I often ended up spending time on commissions and projects.

I was pleasantly surprised that I completed more than 25 commissions as I counted them up! I really thought I didn't make it...;; Sadly, although I completed so many commissions... it still wasn't a salary I could live off of. If I didn't had savings, I would've been in big trouble 💦 This was definitely the biggest "down" I felt this year. The physical evidence that I could not make digital artist my career.

The team is still together for BWOBK! But we've all been busy with our own separate projects and various private matters. We still intend to work on it for 2025, though!

And, it'll definitely be one of my big goals for 2025.

...I don't even remember the happy story goal 😂 (I won't count my fanfics- they're also not that happy either, just slated for a happy ending.)

I wrote for two VNs this year. Sorry to say neither are happy.

Visual Novel Releases

Thank goodness I did not beat last year's record (9 projects) 😂 I would cry with pain...

This year, I submitted 3 "solo" projects.

*Disclaimers:

Most of the remaining work to release the full SYVNH game was mainly just me, but a number of people worked together to make it a reality.

A Sky of Falling Birds is still a demo.

But if I put all these in separate categories, it'd both look like I did very little + stretch the post even further 😅

I also participated in 2 jam projects as an artist!

I also participated in 3 other projects as an artist, but those games are currently not released. So... can it be said that I participated in 5 team projects this year...?

Does that mean I total to 8 projects this year...? Jesus, I didn't beat last year but I sure came close again 😭

A Year of Fan Projects

I participated in a lot of Ace Attorney fan events this year! You can see all of them in my art tag!

Last year, Arimia convinced me to join the DGM 20th Project Zine and although I cried at my own mistakes, I got through to the end! Paneling is hard... Drawing so much detail is even harder... There were definitely many tears during that zine.

See the post here!

Alongside that, I was working on two NaruMitsu Big Bang projects as an artist. I worked with some really great writers who wrote some amazing stories for our love of this pairing!

You can read more about both stories here and here!

Aaaand then after that, I fell in love with The Great Ace Attorney and spent a whole week speedily finishing as many chibi illustrations as I could for Ryuubowl Week, which celebrated the pair AsoRyuu.

You can find all the artwork I made for the week in this tag!

And then I also.. Wait, that's it?? Huh, I thought I did something for Golden Kamuy, too...

Well, I tried to, but ultimately I was so tired from everything else, I didn't get very far beyond one image per challenge/event. Ah, well... There's always next year.

Then... that's it for 2024. It's hard to summarize a whole year of my feelings in a single post (and keep it positive). It's easy to just show all my successes, but there were also many failures. Many attempts in projects that I won't talk about anymore and ideas that couldn't make it through the initial planning phase. There's much more than what I've shown here. But despite it all, I want to keep creating. I want to tell my stories and I want to see people enjoy them!

So I'm going to keep trying. It may not be the way I imagined it to be, I may have to try new methods, but I want to make it happen. And if you read everything and still want to stick around for this journey, thank you, and Happy New Year 2025~

[theanoninyourinbox]

The RealM Monster Maker Game

SO many years ago, when I was a wee artism child, I loved creature generators, mythological creatures, and rolling dice. So I made myself one, and for several years, would continue to use it to make Weird Critters, until my hyperfixations drew me elsewhere. I even gave the creatures a little backstory and world to inhabit - the RealM! (Real inventive, I know /sarcasm)

The Backstory

In 20xx, Humanity discovered a portal to another world, one with magic and medicines and technology that would greatly change and improve the world. The Guardians of this RealM were willing to share the fruits of their world, so long as humans came to visit, as their emotional energies would feed the RealM's magic, thus making both sides stronger.

But there was a catch...no Humans existed in the Realm, nor could they. For many ages ago, a Human had nearly destroyed the RealM, so Humanity was banished.

So the Guardians proposed that any Human who came through would temporarily become a denizen of the RealM, reassuming their Human form when they returned to the Earthside of the portal. Thus a deal was struck. What form will YOU take when you enter The RealM?

(I THINK I wanted to make this into a video game or a tabletop experience, but it's more fun as just an art game)

THE RULES

You need a d6 (six sided die), a paper and pencil/pen or a way to record your results, whatever your chosen art medium is, aaaand that's it!

There are six categories of changes - 1 Mammal, 2 Avian, 3 Reptile, 4 Amphibian and Fish, 5 Insect, and 6 Other. Each category was broken down into six more categories, and a few into six after that!

Mammal broke into Feline (which included mustelids), Canine (included vulpines), Rodentia (somehow bears ended up in here???), Hooved Mammals (even and odd toed), Seafaring Mammals, and Extinct Mammals. Sometimes I put Other Mammals instead of Extinct, which makes sense. Apes were in the Other Mammals category, and were supposed to be rarer in the RealM because of their similarity to Humans.

Avians were Predatory (owls, hawks, eagles, and the like), Seabirds (penguins too), Waterfowl, Songbirds, Pigeons (and doves), and Other Birds (like emus)! Not too much to say here, they could have been better put together.

Reptile was Lizards, Crocs/Gators (and caimans and gharials and so on), Turtles/Tortoises, Snakes, Other Reptiles, and Dinosaurs. I know science says they're closer to birds BUT I was little and needed another reptile category!

Amphibians had Frogs/Toads, Newts/Salamanders, Other Amphibians; Fish had Cold Ocean, Warm Ocean, and Freshwater. You could probably make each of those their own category of 6, but i NEEDED the Other Category!

Insect was Flies, Moths/Butterflies, Beetles, Mantises, Spiders (and anything in the arachnid family), and Other Insects (worms baby!).

Other is a Fun One - the categories were Other Animals (which also could include apes, but was mostly for echidnas and platypi, and octopi too), Mythological Creatures, Alien (literally just any alien from any media), Mechanical, Plant, and Missing! You could get a headless creature, and roll to place the face...buttface teehee...

If you roll a certain kind of creature, it's entirely up to you to pick what kind! You roll a feline - tiger or house cat? Roll a beetle - herculese or stink? You get the idea!

You could also roll for a color scheme instead of a feature - make your fella look like a monarch butterfly!

You could also roll for what part to replace, but I usually just went in this order anyway. The body parts for each roll are 1 Head, 2 Torso, 3 Arms, 4 Legs, 5 Hands, and 6 Feet. Hands and Feet could be switched out for upper/lower torso, wings, or tail!

I don't have time to draw a critter tonight but for old times sake, and the sake of this post, I rolled up someone with the head of a gecko, the body of a swan, the "wings" of a batfish, the legs of a lemur, the tail of a manticore, and the color scheme of a nudibranch! Wow that is...that sure is a critter...

Anyway, please feel free to make one of your own, and PLEASE tag me if you do! I would FLIP if someone did this!

[camaro-and-smokes]

Little Bird Starts Nesting

Chapter 1: Little Bird

3rd and final work in The Way It Should've Been -series

Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: Gen, M/M Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington, Billy Hargrove & Original Character(s), Steve Harrington & Original Character(s) Characters: Billy Hargrove, Steve Harrington, Original Character(s) Additional Tags: Harringrove, Alternate Universe - No Supernatural, Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Domestic Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington, Family Issues, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, Unplanned Pregnancy, Other Additional Tags to Be Added

Summary: Billy and Steve find out that their eldest daughter Emma, at the age of eighteen, was coming of age in a way they never expected. They do their best to help her make a big decision about her future.

Notes: It took me ages, but here's finally the third and final part to this series! I'll be updating probably only once or twice a month because I'm working on so many different fics right now. Best to subscribe to this on AO3 if you want to know when a new chapter is up :) I'll be adding tags whenever chapters require it. FYI: You need to be up to date on the previous works in this series to get the best of it, so, off you go if you haven't read them yet

Read the whole series on AO3 >>

::::::::::

“Dada?” Billy raised his gaze from the book he’d been reading. He saw Emma, the almost nineteen-year-old long-haired beauty who’s dada Billy was proud to call himself, standing at the bedroom doorway. “Yeah?” Emma was fidgeting with her hands, her chin quivering. Billy took off his reading glasses and put them away with the book altogether. “What is it, birdie?” he asked, concerned. “Please don’t be mad at me.”

Billy knew from experience that when your kid asks you to not be mad, it’s usually something you sure as hell might get mad for. A broken window in the neighbor’s minivan (courtesy of a new baseball bat and ball and 10-year-old boy who ‘just wanted to practice’). Or a defrosted freezer in the summer, thanks to a teenager left home alone for a few days (because apparently it was a good idea to pull the plug from the freezer ‘just for a few hours’ to video chat with a friend in the kitchen uninterrupted). Or bite marks in the arm of a kindergarten teacher (yeah, 5-year-old Annie reminded Billy then, once again, that she indeed was his flesh and blood. In her defense, even though Billy didn’t fully approve Annie’s approach, he thought that 'the teacher was stupid' too).

He sat up and patted the mattress next to him. “Ok, come here. What’s up?” Emma sat next to Billy, and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders, hugging her sideways. “You know you can always talk to me. No matter what.” Emma grimaced. “I messed up,” she sniffled. “Okay. But that’s kinda broad, birdie. You’re gonna have to fill me in a bit more.” “Please, don’t tell dad. He’ll kill me.”

It had turned out that Steve was the more strict parent of them too. All three of their kids had wrapped Billy around their fingers and he could hardly deny anything from them. So, having Emma come to him first when in trouble instead of Steve was no surprise.

“Hey, no one is going to kill anyone. But I hope it’s nothing I should keep from him, you know.” Emma looked down at her hands, and then at Billy with pained eyes. “I missed my period,” she whispered.

Billy had heard those words in the ancient past once or twice from a girl. The kind who were trying to get a leverage on him after it had turned out that his interest in them was more of a facade than anything else. Hearing the words from his own daughter, though, made an icy coldness grow inside him. “How many days?” “Three weeks.” Billy was speechless - or rather, chose not to say what came to his mind.

‘What the fuck’, ‘How in the hell’, ‘You knew what could happen if you weren’t careful’ and ‘I’m going to kill that son of a bitch’ all visited the tip of his tongue, ready to fly out of his mouth.

But he also knew that none of those would make the situation any better, so he reeled each one back in and down his throat. “Three weeks? Why didn’t you talk to me earlier?” “I didn’t know if I was just late or late. And I still don’t! I’m sorry, dada!” Emma cried. Billy hugged her tighter when she started sobbing. “Emma. So, you don’t know if you actually are just late or...the other thing?” She shook her head. “But I was really sick in the morning yesterday and today.” Billy took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes with his fingers. “Does Ryan know?” Emma shook her head.

“Ok, birdie, this is what’s going to happen. First, we’re going to get you a test and see what it says. Then we’re going to think this further. Okay?” Emma nodded. “Are you mad at me?” she asked between hiccups. “No, I’m not. But I would’ve appreciated if you’d come to me sooner.” He paused. “Uh, do you have any idea when...you know, when the accident might’ve happened?” Emma looked away. “Emma? Was there a time when the condom maybe broke?” She still said nothing and wouldn’t look at Billy. Billy had to take a few deep breaths to steady his temper. He still couldn’t keep all the edge out of his tone. “So you’re on the pill and it didn’t work, or you forgot to take it?”

When she still said nothing, Billy had to get up and walk by the window to keep himself from shouting at the girl. “Fuck. I knew we should’ve gotten it for you earlier,” he mumbled to himself. He turned to look back at her. “So, you had unprotected sex with Ryan, just like that? No protection at all? Not even a condom?” “He said he didn’t like using one and then we used this calculation method and...” Billy’s eyes grew large. “Birdie, that’s not a method a young girl like you should use!” he growled. “You’ve known him only for a few months. Who knows where he has put his dick in before...”

The moment the last words fell out of his mouth, Billy knew he’d gone too far.

Emma wailed as she ran out of the room, slamming the door of her own room closed behind her. Billy grimaced and took a deep breath. He ran his fingers through his hair, looking at the window. “Well, fuck.”

As Billy was trying to process the news, a boy’s voice sounded from the door: “Are you mad, dada?” Billy turned to look at the 10-year-old dark-haired boy, Junior, who’s big brown eyes always melted his heart, just like his dad’s eyes. Because he was Steve’s son. “No, Jr, I’m not. I just don’t know what to think.” The boy walked into the room and sat on the bed, tapping the mattress just like Billy had done. “We should talk about it.” Despite the severity of the matter at hand, Billy couldn’t help smiling. The kid was exactly like his dad. He walked back to the bed and sat down next to Jr., wrapping his arm around the boy. “Why did you shout at Emma?” the boy asked. “Well, Emma did something that I wasn’t happy about and I lost my temper.” Jr. looked at Billy, his eyes wide. “What happened?” “It’s an adult thing. But you don’t have to worry about it. I will talk with you and Annie about it when we’ve sorted it out a bit more with Emma and dad. Alright?” Jr. nodded. “Can you help me with my homework?” he asked, already moving on from the issue, trusting that his dads would keep him on the loop if necessary. Billy hugged the boy. “I have to stop by the mini-mart. But I’ll help you when I come back, okay? Just do the ones you can yourself and let’s look at the tough ones together.” “Okay.”

Billy changed his sweats into jeans and walked to Emma’s door. He knocked on it. “Hey, birdie?” No reply. “I’m going to the mini-mart to get the test. I won’t be gone for long and dad’s coming home soon, but could you please look after Annie and Jr. while I’m gone?” No answer. “Hey, Emma?” When there still was no reply, Billy leaned his head on the door frame. “I’m sorry that I shouted at you. I’m not angry, just really, really worried. Please, look after our siblings just for fifteen minutes. I’ll be right back.” “Okay,” Emma replied quietly. Billy sighed, relieved. “Thank you, birdie.”

He walked out and sat in his Camaro, turning the key in the ignition. The car barked to life. He placed his hands on top of the wheel and stared at the glorious view of the sea that was turning dark earlier than it had just a few weeks ago, thanks to autumn.

He bit his lip so hard that he tasted blood. His little girl, the one he’d held in his arms less than a day old in the incubator, was possibly having a baby of her own. The prospect horrified him. It was 2015, and it wasn’t like teenagers didn’t get pregnant all the time. And he was fully aware how they got Emma in the first place - but if it was Emma... He didn’t want that for her. To have a baby just when she was supposed to have the world open in front of her. To halt school and postpone going into college... She shouldn’t have to settle down with a family first thing... Not yet, at least.

And the worst was that he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know how to help his baby and he felt so useless that before he even noticed he was already hyperventilating with a full-on panic attack. He scrambled for one of the paper bags he had stacked in the glove box just in case. He hadn’t had a panic attack in a very long time, thanks to his medication, but the news was so overwhelming that probably no amount of medication would’ve been enough to keep him from having one.

When the attack finally passed and his breathing settled, he made it to the mini-mart.

He walked through the aisles towards the personal hygiene section, fidgeting with the nicotine spray he had in his pocket. As he passed other customers, he felt like every one of them was staring at him, judging him for not doing a better job as a father.

The last time he’d felt this nervous while approaching the hygiene section was when he’d had to buy first period pads for Emma. Then, too, he hadn’t known what he was supposed to be doing, and he’d just bought a pack of everything the mart had. Emma hadn’t needed new ones for months. Jesus. That was just a few years ago, he thought to himself. And he knew that at any moment now he’d have to buy pads for Annie too.

What the hell happened to the time suddenly? Everything used to feel like it lasted for forever. Summer nights at the quarry, stolen moments with Steve in the janitor’s closet, school year...

And now time was just running past them and he and Steve were just trying desperately to keep up.

Bill stood in front of the shelf that held the tests. Three different brands. He was a father of three, but not once had he been in this situation. He’d been in the ultrasound examination to find out if Sharon, the surrogate mother who they had Annie and Jr. with, was pregnant. But having to do a pregnancy test at his house... He let out a deep sigh and took one of each brand. Might as well go overboard than not be sure.

When he returned home, Steve’s BMW was in the driveway. “Shit,” he groaned. He put the tests into one of the paper bags he still had out on the passenger seat.

“Hey, firecracker,” Steve said from the couch when Billy walked in. Billy smiled a forced smile. “Hey, babe.”

The years had begun to show on Steve’s face and in the beard he’d began sporting a few years back, making him a snackable silver fox. But his dark eyes were just as they’d always been: deep dark ponds Billy could drown himself in. Billy shook the paper bag in his hand and went straight to the stairs. “Had to get something for Emma. I’ll come down soon.”

Billy sat on Emma’s bed with her and took the tests from the bag. “There were three brands, so I took one of each. Two ones are normal and then this one,” he took one of the boxes in his hand, “is digital. It’s supposed to be the most accurate. They all work with the same idea: you just pee on the strip on the other end.” Emma took one in her trembling hand. Billy set his hand on hers and brushed the hand gently with his thumb, soothing her. Just like Steve did whenever he wanted to soothe him. “Hey, Emma. It’s okay. We’re sorting this out. Let’s read the manuals and then you go to the bathroom.” “Don’t tell dad,” the girl begged again, looking up at Billy. He hugged her. “My little bird,” he said, and let out a deep breath. “We’ll tell him together if there’s something to tell.”

When Emma left for the bathroom, Billy went back downstairs and sat next to Steve on the couch. “Kids.” Steve pecked his cheek and wrapped his arm around him, pulling him into a hug. “Missed you.” Billy would’ve loved to be happy about Steve being home, but he was too worried about Emma. “Missed you, too,” he replied shortly. ”What’s up?” Steve asked. ”Something.” Steve looked at Billy. “Something serious?” ”You could say that.” ”Okay, now I’m worried too.” ”I’ll tell you when I know more. Okay? I promised her.” ”Emma?” Billy grimaced and pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers. He closed his eyes and nodded. ”Hey,” Steve said and rubbed Billy’s arm with his hand. “You’re sorting it out with her?” Billy opened his eyes and looked at Steve. “Yeah.” “Okay. Tell me when you know more,” Steve said, and hugged Billy tighter.

They cuddled on the couch for a while until Emma called Billy from the stairs. “Yeah, coming,” Billy said, getting up. Emma was sitting on her bed when Billy walked in and closed the door behind him. “So?” he asked. Emma’s face was all white and big, fat tears fell on her cheeks as she looked at Billy. Billy’s stomach dropped. “Show me.”

Emma handed the tests to Billy. The normal ones showed two red stripes, a sign of pregnancy, and the digital one said 'you’re positive'. Billy knew it meant exactly that, that the test was positive, but right now he really didn’t feel too positive himself. He sat next to Emma and buried his face in his hands, leaning his elbows on his thighs. “What am I going to do, dada?” Emma asked, sniffling. “Birdie, I wish I knew.” Billy took a deep breath and looked at her. When she started crying, Billy took her in a tight bear hug. “We’re going to figure it out, Emma. Don’t worry,” he assured her, even though he sure as hell didn’t feel confident at all.

[studioahead]

Artist Spotlight: John Gnorski

When we asked John Gnorski what on earth are EARTH BABIES, he took us on a subterranean journey to meet them. Or at least that's how it felt. Hearing John speak about his creative process certainly takes you all over, even into your subconsciousness, about which he has a lot to say. His art is full of strange landscapes, strange portraits, strange figures. Our current fave is one from his Clouds Roll By Like A Train In The Sky series not because of its great title, or because the clouds might actually be birds or blossoms, but because peeking through the print's ink is the grain of the woodblock, reminding us of the materiality that grounds all our work, no matter how wildly dreamt.

Studio AHEAD: John, your bio is mysteriously pithy: “Born in Alexandria, Virginia, living/ working in Point Reyes Station, CA.” What brought you to the other side of the country? 

John Gnorski: I moved from the East Coast more or less on a whim in 2007, picking up and leaving the Hudson Valley, which had been my home for 6 years at that point, and ending up in Portland, OR. Luckily it was still a pretty affordable town at the time so I was able to piece together a nice existence doing carpentry for a day job (which would indelibly inform my art practice) and making art and music every other waking hour. I found a great community, fell in love with the truly epic landscape of the West, and at some point the West Coast just became home. 

After many happy years up in Oregon, my partner Katie, who is a filmmaker, decided to get a master’s degree and that instigated our (truly auspicious) move to the Bay. One thing led to another, and we were lucky enough to find a house to rent in Pt. Reyes Station. Before long we found a great community out here and we hope to stay for as long as we can. 

I do miss the East sometimes, especially the sort of archetypal procession of seasons there with crisp autumn days, deep winters, and summer thunderstorms and lighting bugs. That said, I can’t imagine a more beautiful place to live than here on the Northern California coast. I’m grateful every day to be here and I often think to myself how did I even end up here in this incredible place? 

Studio AHEAD: Has Northern California come to influence the materiality of your work? 

John Gnorski: Absolutely. In a very literal sense I tend to use native wood in my work whenever I can, but the influence goes beyond the physical material to a particular sensibility that seems to be shared by a lot of Northern California artists across generations and styles. I find that, at least in my experience, there’s less concern out here about the whole (false) binary of art vs. craft than I experienced as a young artist on the East Coast (particularly in the vicinity of New York). 

I think that this attitude has, thankfully, changed quite a bit pretty much everywhere in the years since I moved west, but nevertheless California has a long history of breaking down established conventions and categories. Ceramics and wood sculpture, for instance, have been taken seriously out here for generations in a way that hasn’t historically been the case out east. 

This anti-hierarchical spirit famously permeates a lot of the culture out here. A nice example is the great DIY building tradition of the “hippies” and other folks who took to the rural areas of the coast, starting in the middle of the last century, and made truly beautiful, strange, and inspired homes out here that flout both architectural convention and often the laws of physics. I’ve had the pleasure of helping to restore some buildings like this up in Mendocino and, to bring this full circle, some of the little scraps and bits I’ve taken with me from those projects have become pieces of my own work, along with the lessons of those often anonymous artist/builders who made, intentionally or not, amazing sculpture-houses. 

There’s also a very strong Japanese influence on the aesthetics of so much California art/craft/design that’s found its way into my work. Would I be making these very Japanese/Noguchi-inspired lanterns if I hadn’t ended up here? I don’t know for sure but I’m guessing this place has informed them quite a bit. 

Studio AHEAD: Don't get Homan started on Noguchi. He's obsessed. What is your relation to abstraction? Many of your sculptures and drawings almost seem to form recognizable figures, but not quite. 

John Gnorski: With very few exceptions everything I make is representational even if it’s hard to decipher the image in the finished piece. I’m looking at a little watercolor painting right now that would almost certainly appear totally abstract to anyone but me, but I know that I made it in the Mojave desert and I can see the particular landscape that I was trying to depict—the horizon, the heat ripples, little constellations of scrubby desert plants—though it’s basically reduced to visual symbols. 

It’s not necessarily a formal decision I’ve made to avoid pure abstraction, it’s more of a narrative one. Having concrete subject matter is an important starting point for me, one method of avoiding the potentially paralyzing experience of confronting the blank page. So even if the finished picture or object ends up miles away from where it began, I still start by saying to myself, for instance: I’m going to draw a lizard sunning itself on a stump or, as in one of the pictures I’m working on now, I’m going to draw a bather in Tomales Bay stooping down to look at a bat ray. One might end up a pretty faithful manifestation of the concept while another might go through the ringer of some process and turn out as a loopy line drawing that barely hints at its source material. 

I sometimes do the same thing when I write songs, coming up with a title first and then writing into that. The two even intersect as in my continuing series of cloud pictures all of which are titled “Clouds Roll By Like A Train In The Sky” which is also the name of a song I wrote. Without the title those pictures read as geometric abstraction, but with the title they become clouds. Context is so important! 

Studio AHEAD: Those cloud pictures, and also your Rorschach-like quarantine notebooks/bird and butterfly prints, give room to the subconscious. How do you get into that mental space when creating that allows for the subconscious to take over? 

John Gnorski: Allowing room for the subconscious is really important to me because at the end of the day it’s very often the accidental/unintentional things that really resonate with me. To clarify, when I say subconscious in this context what I’m really talking about is allowing forces outside of my control to work in the picture/object. I try to maintain a decent level of competence when it comes to the basics of art-making, but I also try to use whatever “technique” I’ve developed to allow chance and accident to do their wonderful work. I know that nothing I could map out perfectly from start to finish will be nearly as interesting as something that transforms in ways I never could have anticipated through the process of the making. 

This sensibility is very visibly present in the Rorschach-style pieces and a lot of my sketchbooks and works on paper, but it’s there in less obvious ways in all of my work. The lanterns, for instance, might appear as though each little bit of joinery was carefully plotted out, but in reality they are built based on pretty simple line drawings and constructed in an organic manner. I’ll have a basic shape I want to achieve, but the way everything is put together is done on the fly. Sometimes a connection might become redundant structurally as a piece grows, but I’ll keep it in there as a remnant of the process. All the little false steps and unintentional gestures become a part of the piece and give it a complexity I wouldn’t have achieved if I’d set out with a dialed-in plan and done things in the most elegant and minimal way possible. 

The same is true of the ink on paper pieces which begin life as charcoal drawings and allow chance to seep in throughout the process. I rub the drawings onto plywood “plates” which transfers them in an imperfect but legible manner. I’m also using multiple plates and pieces of paper to allow for misalignments, and the plates themselves are of a type of plywood that tends to have an active grain that sometimes splinters or “runs”—interrupting the carved line in often surprising ways. I hand print the plates, which produces unexpected textures, and then go back into the image with more ink or sometimes collage or pastel. So in the end what began as a pretty clear and maybe even graceful line drawing becomes, through the welcoming-in of chance, something a bit more nuanced and awkward, full of special little moments on its physical surface that come out of that totally not conscious place of process. 

Studio AHEAD: Tell us about EARTH BABIES, your collaboration with Kate Bernstein. We are particularly interested in how collaboration impacts the creative process—we have many ideas about this at Studio AHEAD and those ideas are constantly evolving. Do you find it easier to work alone or with a partner? 

John Gnorski: EARTH BABIES is the conceptual tent that shelters all the collaborative work that Katie and I do together. It started as a music/installation performance at an amazing event called Spaceness that friends of ours organized for 5 years on the coast of Washington at a place called the Sou’wester. 

Spaceness was a very free-form community art-making event that revolved around the concept of the unknown, and often featured work relating to outer space or unexplored worlds. It was held annually in early spring—the very darkest and dreariest time of the year in the Pacific Northwest—and it featured music, dance, video, radio, you name it. Folks would work for months on their contributions, and it was so beautiful: community coming together to make their own entertainment and help each other through dark days. For me, this is the best case scenario for art-making. I like to think of it as subsistence art—art for fun and joy and also for survival. It honestly makes me tear up thinking about it, and I often cried during the performances there. It just moves me so much to see what people can make with little to no budget out of the simplest materials like cardboard, scrap wood, clip lights, fabric, words: whole worlds that can really put you under a spell, transport you, communicate a message, and make time and space for our imaginations to nourish one another. 

Anyway (and forgive me, this is going to get maybe a little esoteric) Katie and I, inspired by a trip to Ghost Ranch in New Mexico, came up with this idea of a whole culture of beings living deep under the surface of our Earth called “Earth Babies.” We first wrote and recorded songs based on this imaginary world, and over the years we made various installations: the “Healing Machine” which was a sound bath in a hand-built A-frame in the woods and the “Hopler Archive,” a fictional natural history museum. 

At this point, EARTH BABIES is the name we use whenever we want to make something creative without the burden of our “actual” identities getting in the way. It’s our shared alter ego that allows for maximum creative expression. 

As for collaboration generally, as much as I love spending time alone in my studio, my ideal art making ratio would be 25% solitary practice, and 75% collaboration. I love the energy of working with other artists, performers, thinkers, etc., and I think that collaboration leads to amazing things no one ever could have come up with on their own. I also think that community events like DIY music shows, theater, potlucks and ephemeral art exhibits in informal spaces are the most heartfelt and wonderful forms of art —purely collaborative and collectively authored. Again, it’s that idea of “subsistence art”. If none of us had to worry about selling our work I think there would naturally be a lot less emphasis on individual style and a lot less concern about authorship. Maybe collaboration would be the new norm and we could all contribute a verse to the big song we sing to sustain ourselves. 

Studio AHEAD: What's your favorite music to listen to while making art? You are also a DJ and musician.

John Gnorski: Katie and I host a radio show on West Marin’s community radio station KWMR every other Sunday morning, which has really made us feel connected to the community out here. 

I listen to a huge variety of music in my studio from atmospheric/ambient music like Brian Eno and Hiroshi Yoshimura to soul to Neil Young to Terry Riley to Alice Coltrane to Lucinda Williams. I’ll often just rely on my cassette library to take a break from the digital realm, which features a lot of mixtapes from Mississippi Records, my favorite record store/label. But if I had to choose only one thing to listen to while making art it would be Ornette Coleman. I’ve listened to a collection of his recordings called Beauty Is A Rare Thing many thousands of times over the years in every studio, basement, garage, and shed I’ve worked in. His music has every color and emotion and gesture in it, and it radiates compassion and energy and love. It’s also difficult at times and can go from soothing to jarring pretty quickly, much like life. When I listen to a song like “I Heard It Over The Radio” I hear everything from voices harmonizing singing a folk song to animals making raucous calls to wind in the trees and rattling subway cars. 

Studio AHEAD: What can you do in music that you can’t do in the plastic arts? And vice versa? 

John Gnorski: For me the boundaries are pretty porous. As I alluded to earlier with the titling of my work, there’s a lot of crossover and dialogue between disciplines in my practice. It’s easier for me to come up with analogies. A skittering, hesitant line in a drawing conveys something similar to a thin, airy flute or a tentative phrase on a piano. Take a lyric like this one by Leonard Cohen: 

Nancy was alone

looking at the late, late show

through a semi-precious stone. 

It conjures all kinds of atmospheres and emotional states like a Rothko or an Alice Neel portrait. Whenever I hear Alice Coltrane play the harp I think of someone painting with absolutely every color on their palette. 

Music, however—live music—does have the wonderful quality of being ephemeral that most plastic arts don’t possess. It allows you to really inhabit the moment if you choose to. As a performer you’re also able to collaborate with an audience in a way that’s much harder to do with visual art. If you can engage an audience, or are part of an engaged audience, it can really make the experience special, with everyone kind of rooting for the performers and contributing their attention and energy to make the whole experience really lovely. 

Then I suppose there are some stories that can be more eloquently told in pictures or gestures than in sound. Light can be captured really evocatively in a drawing or a painting and used to make form in the realm of sculpture. There are some feelings you can only get, some ideas that can only be conveyed, when you’re in the presence of a physical thing. 

Studio AHEAD: I want to end on the very first photo posted on your Instagram. It’s a poster that says: “Now is the time to do your life’s work.” How do you or how do you try to live this mantra? 

John Gnorski: I made this picture as a kind of personal affirmation to hang on my studio wall many years ago. A lot of people who came through commented on it and it seemed like most everyone appreciated the reminder. 

My idea of my “life’s work” changes all the time, but the constant is a commitment to making things that I hope will tell a story or convey a feeling clearly and with heart. At times it can seem like art is some kind of luxury or commodity, but then I remember how it has truly illuminated and influenced and given hope and shape to my life and the lives of a lot of other people over the entire course of human existence. I think that being an artist is as noble a vocation as any, and more helpful to humanity than a lot of things I could be doing with my time. 

I’m in the fortunate position of being able to primarily make a living by making art and other art-adjacent objects these days, but in the recent past when I would be laboring away at a carpentry gig, I would think of that image and that mantra and remember that I had some kind of calling beyond the job that paid the bills—a “life’s work” that couldn’t be defined by an hourly rate—and that the artist work deserved and demanded my commitment. I still believe that if I show up for the muse or universe or whatever you want to call it everyday, ready and willing to work, that I’ll be able to somehow keep doing this as my life’s work and hopefully make things that help other people see life or hear it or survive and take joy in it. 

Studio AHEAD: We love that. We always start with asking our clients how they live. It's so important. Can you give us three creative people/places/cultural forces based in Northern California that we should take note of?

John Gnorski: Cole Pulice is a musician/composer living in the East Bay whose music often keeps me company in the studio. We also listen to a piece of theirs almost every day on the short drive from our house to the trail that we walk to check on the animal neighbors and greet the day. 

Bolinas/Pt.Reyes/Inverness DIY art/music scene This is an acknowledgement of the type of creative community vitality that to me is the heart of sustaining art-making—artists, musicians, writers—we can also get specific and talk about it in terms of two spaces where most of this stuff takes place: the Gospel Flat Farm Stand and the hardware store in Bolinas. Both are DIY spaces of the highest caliber that provide the setting and the energy for art to happen. 

Ido Yoshimoto. I know that everyone reading this probably already knows Ido’s work [if not, we interviewed him here —SA] but I feel compelled to shout him out because he so generously invited me into the community here when we landed a few years back. He’s also shared knowledge and food and time. The people who make their lives here and share their talents and have profound respect for the land are the soul of this place, and Ido is one of those people.

Photos by Ekaterina Izmestieva

[monriatitans]

MonriaTitans

Let's Play Some Demos! – Part 9

Welcome to Part 9 of the Let's Play Some Demos! | LPSD series! For those who are new, I aim to introduce gamers to, usually, Indie games and provide commentary and feedback on the games for educational purposes! For this episode, I, once again, perused through Steam’s Demos Category to see what was available.

Today, I, attempted, to play 4 video game demos for your enjoyment:

Backpack Battles - Early Access A PvP inventory management auto battler! Buy and craft powerful items, then carefully arrange them in your backpack.

Glaciered - Planned Release Date: To be announced Soar the seas at the end of time. 65 million years in the future, the world has frozen over, and the oceans have been sealed under a thick layer of ice. Become a Tuai — a species that evolved from birds — and protect the Everwinter in this futuristic underwater action game.

Ratopia - Early Access Ratopia is a new game that has combined elements of both strategic survival and city building. With plenty of content available, and more planned, enjoy a vast world to adventure and populate with citizens! Build your own economical system to sustain your ideal city of Ratopia.

Slime Rancher - Available Slime Rancher is the tale of Beatrix LeBeau, a plucky, young rancher who sets out for a life a thousand light years away from Earth on the ‘Far, Far Range’ where she tries her hand at making a living wrangling slimes.

All links above are to the games' Steam pages.

Why was it an "attempt" to play? If you started watching the video before reading this, you'll know the first video attempt was cut due to running out of storage space. Thankfully, I have another drive to move big things.

However, I will still be able to render a verdict.

In both videos, I showed why I wasn't able to play Backpack Battles: when I was "in" the game, the video went black. When I clicked off the game, it was viewable. So, I'll have to play it in my own time and do a written mini-review. I will start with this, though: the art style was amazing! And the two classes they had available looked pretty interesting.

Glaciered was disappointing. That's the dirt on top of the "Compliment Sandwich". The story has potential. The graphics are GORGEOUS! You play as a bird, shark creature! Why did the controls have to be so irritatingly confusing? Good thing I wasn't counting because I would have lost track of how many times I opened up the Controls menu to make adjustments and the menu that adjusted camera sensitivity.

The game has Controller Support, and yet not all of the buttons and sticks were automatically mapped. The tutorial would tell me to press a button to Heal, but there wouldn't be a button symbol shown. It wasn't until I went into the controls and picked a button, X, that it was presented in the tutorial. That was pretty cool, actually, the tutorial adjusting to me. I had to figure out how I wanted the buttons mapped myself. And here's where I get to things being annoyingly confusing.

In order to move, I, eventually, mapped forward, back, left, and right to the Left Stick. Yes, I had to map each one to the Left Stick separately. However, in order to actually turn corners, the camera had to be used, which was mapped to the Right Stick. To Ascend quickly, it was A. To Descend, it was Y. Unless I mixed them up again... To dodge left or right was B. Again, it was X to heal. The game had me using the ENTIRE controller!

And the mapping of buttons wasn't the main issue, as I mentioned. The camera sensitivity was ridiculous! I had to drop it down to the minimum in order to be comfortable, but then, when they showed me how to sprint, I realized I needed more sensitivity. Had I not had to figure out how to MOVE, and had I not gotten motion sickness from all the attempts, on TOP of the motion blur, I could recommend the game. As is, it's too frustrating. I wasn't able to have fun with the combat because I was too busy being annoyed at the controls.

Ratopia SIGNIFICANTLY improved my mood! Even when it frustrated me. I eventually realized I was the cause of my own frustration. It was during this demo that the first video cut. So, since I wasn't going to go back and play Glaciered again, most of the demo was Ratopia. And if it hadn't been, I definitely would have made it a "Let's Play Some $#!7 | LPS$ - Let's finish the demo!" video. I WANT THIS GAME!

The controls were easy to pick up on, despite the typos throwing me off on occasion, and the "combined elements of both strategic survival and city building" had me engaged! I don't remember playing another city-building game that had me caring about the people within said city. Backing up a bit, the bit of story we received was you're a ruler of a kingdom and you're escaping assassination attempts. You tunnel into a new land, with your second in command, and now you're rebuilding. And, due to limited resources, you have to pick which migrants are allowed to enter your community. And you NEED to pay attention!

Would it be better to take in two people with some attitude problems so you have additional workers or take in a more reasonable individual with hygiene issues? Because, yes, you have to monitor your peoples' hygiene. And their joy. And, yes, the developers make you pay attention to their personalities because there are CAUSES of their negative behavior. And they make requests of you. And your choices matter. I had already decided I would be a fair queen who actually gave a damn, so when someone complained there weren't enough fun things to do, I, as soon as I was able, researched the building they were requesting. I also put more focus on fun.

My mistake was not paying close enough attention to the Research. I was being told to build buildings I wasn't even CLOSE to being able to research!

And I haven't even talked about the art; EVERYONE was adorable! Except for the diseased rats that kept attacking everything. Remember when I mentioned in the beginning I was causing my own frustration? They were what I was talking about. It took my dying, and then reloading a previous save, for me to realize I was being overrun by the rats because I was attacking their home base. Oops. I made sure to back away before attacking the invaders after that. And during the attacks was when everyone was the most animated! I mean, duh, but they were very well done! It was always clear how everyone was feeling, regardless of the situation, due to how well done the animations were. This was an EXCELLENT example of Early Access done right!

Slime Rancher wasn't for me, but I see why people would enjoy it. I very much enjoy watching people play, even if watching them gives me headaches. I noticed I didn't really get a headache playing this, like I expected. I had one, but it wasn't caused by the game. And because I had watched other people play, I played CAREFULLY! No genicidal, tar slimes for me, thanks!

I, kinda, got into the ranch building and updates, but the exploring was... meh. I wasn't excited about engaging with the world. Did I freak out once about how cute the non-tar slimes were? Yes, but that was all the game had going for it. That and when I had to beat certain slimes to plorts. My reaction to those slimes amused me because I realized how invested I was getting. But the game wasn't able to maintain the investment. Comparing it to Ratopia, since they're similar, I wasn't really attached to the slimes. In Ratopia, I was actually TRYING to learn about the people in my community. The slimes were a means to an end. An end I didn't care about.

In the end, I moved Ratopia to my WANT Collection, after uninstalling Glaciered and Slime Rancher. 

As a reminder, Backpack Battles and Ratopia are in Early Access, Glaciered does not yet have a release date, and Slime Rancher is Available.

And that's it for Part 9! Thank you for reading! If this series of videos is something you're interested in, the videos are available on YouTube, The Titans' Discord, Steam, Rumble, and Odysee!  Don't forget to hit the Subscribe and/or Follow buttons to know when there's more!

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"Let's Play Some Demos!" Video Series YouTube Playlist

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TIMESTAMPS 0:00 - Welcome Again Gamers! 2:39 - Artist Shout-Out 7:07 - Quick Recap Begins 7:14 - Backpack Battles Recap 7:43 - Glaciered Recap 9:43 - Demos' Description Reading 11:29 - Ratopia Continued 2:31:46 - Slime Rancher 3:24:50 - Took a Call 3:26:10 - Slime Rancher 3:31:56 - Demos' Lineup/Quick Commentary 3:33:15 - Artist Shout-Out 3:34:06 - Thank You/Links 3:35:23 - Rendezvous Point Bookshop Plug 3:36:04 - Farewell

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MORE INFO & TO SUPPORT – MonriaTitans | WGS Summarized – Rendezvous Point Bookshop – Artist Shout-Outs Criteria – Throne Wishlist – #SubOffTwitch – YouTube – Rumble – Odysee – Twitch – Steam

Originally published to https://opinionsandtruth.wordpress.com on November 19, 2024.

[summonedfrommyhands]

Amami and Ouma followed suit, both remarking about the identifiers. Ouma said the bird looked more like a weirdly drawn heart with wings. Amami’s comment regarded the similarity of the patterns to those on their own clothes. Maybe it was connected, somehow.

“That’s amazing, Akamatsu, you’re amazing,” Akamatsu flushed at Saihara’s praise, denying it immediately. It was just something she found, it wasn’t hard to miss.

“Everyone here missed it, don’t downplay yourself, Akamatsu,” Amami said, smiling at her. Saihara, at this point, had started to sort the books into two categories, one for the X, and the other for the bird.

Evenly split, fourteen books belonged to either author. All of The Tragedy and what came after, in twenty eight books. Kaede wondered if the authors took late nights to complete the set.

She wondered how many will continue to be written.

“When looking for information, the style was completely missed,” Saihara said, hand to his chin in thought. “Usually, authors display identifiers in chapter books like a page by page animation. To have their symbols tucked between blank pages at the end of the books…” Kaede watched Saihara’s eyes glaze over in thought, putting pieces together in a way she couldn’t. She smiled softly, thinking at this point it’d be stupid to have her friend deny his Ultimate Title.

“A group,” he said after everyone fell into silence, waiting for him to speak his mind, “There’s a group of people helping us, not a single person.” Letting his words sink in, the noticeably tense atmosphere lessened.

Kaede noticed everyone relax a bit, most likely overjoyed that there’s a group of people searching for them rather than just one person.

“F.F. is a name, just not the one we were looking for. It’s the Future Foundation, right? Don’t they have their own Ultimate Detective? Though you’re my favorite, don’t mistake it.” Ouma said, bringing up the book in his hand to reveal Future Foundation: the Rise, Fall, and Rebuilding of the World.

He handed the book over to Saihara, who took it with a small thanks. Ouma just smiled, and Kaede could reasonably say yeah, flowers seemed to appear around him during the exchange.

She thinks someone snorted. No one commented on their little atmosphere.

“The Future Foundation is very likely our helpers. They have an A.I. with them, so hacking our game to hide within it would be easy. Since the second game, they must have had a contingency to prevent a take over from happening again. It’s reasonable to believe they engineered the opposite, too.” Harukawa said, crossing her arms.

“Also, the Future Foundation was formed after The Tragedy started. In every shape and form, they were the pillar of hope for the people. Especially since they drafted Hope’s Peak alumni to their staff.” Amami said. “They even rescued the survivors of Hope’s Peak after they escaped the school. They have influence, prestige, and the trust of the people. A big powerhouse.”

“It does make sense. Only the Future Foundation would be functional enough to gather everyone together. It makes sense for them to meddle in copycat games after the herald died.” Saihara mused out loud, flipping through the names until he found the currently alive members of the organization.

“They worked in the interest of the people. Meddling in the games would be default if the public were to know. It couldn’t’ve been easy to realize people our age were still being kidnapped to perform for a delusion,” Amami said, looking over Saihara’s shoulder before whistling lowly, “... And it seems the survivors took it over. That’s a lot of them gone, wow,”

“They did have their own killing game, after all. That old hoot created a false trial to get them to kill each other. I wouldn’t doubt their ‘best interest’ for the people were a cover for their own selfishness,” Ouma said, yawning like his words were boring to say. His snide remarks made her remember that in the Future Foundation’s killing game, many of them turned to kill each other almost immediately. She felt her lips tug down into a frown, wondering how they could act in their own self interest like that.

“No,” she said anyway, softly rebutting the words, “I think the trial was real. The moment they returned from Jabberwocky after the reformed woke up, a trial was immediately held because in their eyes, a crime so unforgivable was committed using their resources. Logically, they had to punish that anyway.”

“So, at any point the game could’ve started? The trial was just used as a precursor because of the betrayal.” Harukawa said. The ultimate had a look of angered confusion on her face, most likely because the line of thinking was incredibly absurd.

“I think it’s because the trial caught the eyes of too many people. Who wouldn’t want to see why the Future Foundation was suddenly executing their golden boy? They did operate under the assumption the games were being broadcasted, after all. Even everyone working at the foundation would have shown up to see what happened.” Amami said, agreeing with Kaede’s thoughts. Kaede smiled at him as a show of thanks, relieved when he returned it.

“Apparently, at the time of the trial, the infighting was incredibly bad. The Future Foundation found itself at a split of ideals. Those who followed the Ultimate Hope, and those who followed the alumni Ultimate Student Council President. The games, speculated in the book, were a means to bring them together.” Saihara added, then bowed his head in thought.

“Their differences were too much. A lot of people died in that game. What a bunch of losers, not being able to keep their heads together,” Ouma said, a step away from saying Kaede’s ugly thoughts on the matter. While she didn’t go so far to say they were losers, they didn’t exactly give the picture of reliability.

“What you’re saying is, if the factions collided on the side of the previous Student Council President, we would’ve been left to fend for ourselves?” Harukawa asked, her glare at nothing in particular darkening. Kaede could see the ends of her hair picking up, very obviously showing her thoughts on the matter.

Ouma, who was leaning on Saihara in the way that reminded Kaede of an overly affectionate cat, looked at Harkawa, face calm and finger pointed in a sharp contrast to her anger.

“If I were that stupid as hell Boxer, I would’ve just kissed the guy I liked rather than letting the world end! How embarrassing for him, who couldn’t even do his job in either buildings right. Who lets themselves be blackmailed by a freak of nature teenager?” Harukawa’s glare leveled at him, hair raising a little more.

“That doesn’t answer my - “ Ouma cut her off, smile reminding Kaede of a plastic squeaker toy.

“But it does! That idiot sabotaged the efforts of others to uncover schemes more than once. Our game wouldn’t exist without him, and if they continued being in charge, they’d probably kill us themselves. It’s obvious to see we’re trapped in the game until it’s over from one side. The survivors encoded information into the game to help us escape - they at least want us alive like they did the Remnants.” The sneer in his voice was clear, sending a cold jolt through Kaede despite his face remaining calm and composed.

Harukawa clicked her tongue, but didn’t say anything else. Saihara raised his hand to place it on Ouma’s head, who responded by relaxing into the touch.

Yeah, Kaede thought, Definitely a cat.

[bluelikesapphire]

So I only plan reading about 20 books next year, since I will be too busy for more, but I still want to try and fill as many spaces as possible. Also, I don't want to plan my reading so precisely, since I get all of my books secondhand or from the library, and not everything is always available, but I still put a little thought into it.

First, there are some categories I see as freebies, since they already fit my natural reading habits: Literary Fiction, Published before 1950, Historic Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy, 20th century Speculative Fiction and Recipes (2025 is the year I will master risottos)

Now to the other categories

Short Stories: Sommerhaus, später by Judith Hermann

Sequel: There are a few things I might pick up, but what I definitely will be reading God Emperor of Dune by Frank Herbert

Childhood Favorite: The Neverending Story by Michael Ende

Indie Publisher: Here I have no book picked, but it will be something by the publisher Elfenbein. I respect what they do so much, and it is a real passion project

Manga: Dungeon Meshi time

Animal on the cover: Either This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar (birds) or The Blunderer by Patricia Highsmith (I own a copy with a husky on the front)

Set in a Country You Have Never Visited: Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Jo

2025 Debut Author: This one will be tricky, since my library is very slow to add new releases, and when they do the wait time is forever, so we'll see what I get, but I have been looking at Julie Chan is Dead by Liann Zhang and Homeseeking by Karissa Chen

Essay Collection: Six Memos for the Next Millenium by Italo Calvino

Romance Novel: Half a Soul by Olivia Atwater

Horror: American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis? Maybe? We will see how that goes, because Horror stresses me out so much. I'm fine with Dracula and Frankenstein etc., but I want to do this to read more varied books so that would defeat the point (also I reread both of those this fall already)

Published in the Aughts: Gut gegen Nordwind by Daniel Glattauer or Kafka on the Seashore by Haruki Murakami

I skipped the nonfiction ones for now, because there I just want to see what speaks to me in the library (same for the librarian recommendation obviously), although In the Dreamhouse seems like it would be right up my alley, so I will also keep my eyes open for that at the secondhand bookstore

Also I haven't looked into Award Winners yet. I thought Martyr! won something, but that was just a finalist. Oh well. I will read it anyway for a different category

2025 book bingo time 📚

want a completely arbitrary set of reading goals for 2025? want to try something new in your literary diet but don't know where to start? just like a challenge for the sake of a challenge? just love a good game of bingo?

boy do I have something for you!

for anyone planning to participate, please know that I LOVE attention and talking about books, so I would be STOKED to be tagged on any and all updates about what you're reading or planning to read. I'm so, so excited to see all the different ways these prompts get filled, especially if and when they bring people away from the kinds of things they normally read. not to mention snag some new reading recs myself, hopefully!

and of course, I want to know whenever somebody gets a bingo - and ESPECIALLY if somebody fills the whole board! I don't have any prizes for you, but I can offer a sense of accomplishment :)

note that this is designed to be played as 1 book = 1 space, so even if you read, say, a fantasy graphic novel published in 1923 from an indie publisher that has a bat on the cover, you'd only cross off one space. I'm not a cop and I'm not in charge of what you read, so if it sparks more joy to check off multiple spaces per book then go nuts, but I am throwing that disclaimer out there.

EDIT: the 2025 book bingo challenge is now also on storygraph, thanks to @obi-wann-cannoli!

wondering what some of these spaces mean? seeking a couple recommendations to get you started? no idea what a zine even is, let alone how to make one? worry not! I have a guide to all 25 prompts, including recommendations + an example of what I'll be reading throughout the year to fulfill each space. read on beneath the cut!

Literary Fiction: I find that a lot of people are reluctant to check out literary fiction, as it’s often written off as not being about anything but adultery and divorce. If this is you, I implore you to take a chance, acknowledge that adultery and divorce are compelling sometimes, and also remember that lit fic has a lot more to offer than that. At Writer’s Digest, Michael Woodson describes literary fiction as “less of a genre than a category,” which “focuses on style, character, and theme over plot.” My recommendations include Raven Leilani’s Luster, Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, and Melissa Broder’s Milk Fed. 

I’ll be reading: Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

2. Short Story Collection: You know, a bunch of short stories together in one book? It doesn’t get much more self-explanatory than that. Could be a collection of stories by a single author or an anthology—it’s up to you! I recommend checking out Mariana Enríquez’s The Dangers of Smoking in Bed (translated by Megan McDowell), Nalo Hopkinson’s Falling in Love With Hominids, and Kim Fu’s Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century. 

I’ll be reading: Your Utopia by Bora Chung and translated by Anton Hur 

3. A Sequel: It could be one that you’ve been meaning to get around to, one that’s not releasing until 2025, or the sequel to something you read to cross off another space on this very bingo sheet!

I’ll be reading: Heavenly Tyrant by Xiran Jay Zhao, sequel to 2021’s Iron Widow 

4. Childhood Favorite: Go back and read a book you loved as a child, tween, or teen! There’s no wrong answer here; anything from a YA novel to a picture book would be just lovely, and I can’t wait to see what people pick for this option! I’m not sure which of my old favorites I’ll be revisiting yet—should I go for the warm and fuzzy Casson Family series, or straight towards the mindfucky sci-fi of Interstellar Piggy? Or maybe I’ll go see how Artemis Fowl holds up...

5. 20th Century Speculative Fiction: For those not familiar with the term, speculative fiction can encapsulate science fiction, fantasy, and anything else that falls into the unreal. You’re spoiled for iconic choices here: the 20th century gave us Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness, Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale, Butler’s Parable of the Sower and Kindred, L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, the beginning of Pratchett’s Discworld series, Diana Wynne Jones’ Howls’ Moving Castle, and countless others.

I’ll be reading: Dawn by Octavia E. Butler, love of my literary life 💜

6. Fantasy: Fantasy comes in a thousand different shades, from contemporary urban wizards with day jobs at the office to high fantasy spellslingers chasing dragons away from castles. Some examples I’ve adored are N.K. Jemisin’s The Killing Moon, C.L. Polk’s Witchmark, Fonda Lee’s Jade City, and Nghi Vo’s Empress of Salt and Fortune.

I’ll be reading: The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty  

7. Published Before 1950: This one could not be more straightforward if I tried. You have all of human history (or at least, all the parts that have surviving literature), just not the last 75 years. Dig deep! 

I’ll be reading: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, published in 1938 

8. Independent Publisher: Did you guys know that just five publishing companies (Penguin Random House, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan Publishers, Simon & Schuster, and Hachette Book Group) are responsible for 80% of books published in the US each year, and 25% of books globally? Break away from the big five and see what some small presses are putting out! If you need some ideas about where to start, check out this list of nearly 300 independent publishers with notes on what kind of books they put out!

I’ll be reading: Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and translated by Lin King, from Graywolf Press

9. Graphic Novel/Comic Book/Manga: Despite my personal obsession with Batman, the world of comic books is sooo much wider than Gotham City—or anything else that DC and Marvel have to offer. If superheroes aren’t your speed, check out the Southern gothic of Carmen Maria Machado and Dani Strips’ comic The Low, Low Woods, splash around in Kat Leyh’s graphic novel Thirsty Mermaids, or stop waiting for a new season of Dungeon Meshi and go read Ryoko Kui’s manga, translated to English by Taylor Engel. 

I’ll be reading: The Fade, by Aabria Iyengar and Mari Costa

10. Animal on the Cover: Yes, yes, don’t judge a book by its cover—but do go find one with a critter on the cover and give it a read! Absolutely no other requirements here, get silly with it.

I’ll be reading: Shark Heart by Emily Habeck

11. Set in a Country You Have Never Visited: Fiction or nonfiction, doesn’t matter so long as it gives you a little glimpse of a country you’ve never visited in real life. If you’ve somehow visited every country currently recognized in the world, then I guess you get to go read something set in space.

I’ll be reading: A Magical Girl Retires by Park Seolyeon and Kim Sanho, translated by Anton Hur 

12. Science Fiction: A genre just as diverse as fantasy, with a little something for everybody! I recommend Becky Chambers’ Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet for those who want to kiss an alien in the stars and Jessamine Chan’s The School for Good Mothers for those who want a surveillance state dystopia that hits much closer to home.  

I’ll be reading: Womb City by Tlotlo Tsamaase

13. 2025 Debut Author: Read a book by someone who’s releasing their first book in 2025. Fic or nonfic, any genre, no further requirements. Not quite a free space, but pretty close!

I’ll be reading: Liquid: A Love Story by Mariam Rahmani, coming out March 11

14. Memoir: Per Wikipedia, a memoir is “any nonfiction narrative writing based on the author’s personal memories.” Some are funny, some are heartbreaking, some are both! I recommend Carman Maria Machado’s In the Dream House and Roxane Gay’s Hunger, because I tend to lean heartbreaking! 

I’ll be reading: Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner. Again, I like heartbreaking!

15. Read a Zine, Make a Zine: Not familiar with zines? No problem! Check out some of these digital archives for inspiration, and then craft your own zine with this simple guide (or do it your own way, I’m not in charge of you). 

Internet Archives: https://archive.org/details/zines

Gay Zine Archive Project: https://gittings.qzap.org/ 

POC Zine Project: https://poczineproject.tumblr.com/ 

Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/collections/zine-web-archive/ 

16. Essay Collection: Like a short story collection, but it’s nonfiction now. Some of my favorites include Samantha Irby’s We Are Never Meeting in Real Life, Elaine Castillo’s How to Read Now, Aimee Nezhukhumatathil’s World of Wonders, and Cathy Park Hong’s Minor Feelings.

I’ll be reading: A Little Devil in America: In Praise of Black Performance by Hanif Abdurraqib 

17. 2024 Award Winner: What award? Any award you like! And boy, there are tons to pick from. Any book that won any award in the year 2024 is free game. If you need some places to start looking, check out some of these:

Lambda Literary Awards, for excellence in LGBT literature: https://lambdaliterary.org/awards__trashed/2024-winners/ 

The Alex Awards, for adult books with crossover appeal for teen readers: https://www.ala.org/yalsa/alex-awards 

Ignyte Awards, celebrating diversity in speculative fiction: https://ignyteawards.fiyahlitmag.com/2024-results/  

Women's Prize for Fiction (self explanatory) https://womensprize.com/prizes/womens-prize-for-fiction/

Others: https://www.bookbrowse.com/awards/ 

I’ll be reading: Biography of X by Catherine Lacey, winner of the 2024 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction

18. Nonfiction: Learn Something New: I know very little about archaeology, anthropology, or any other fields that involve studying ancient cities, but Annalee Newitz’s Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age was some of the most fun I had with nonfiction in 2024, because every page brought a brand new discovery. For 2025, find a nonfiction book about a topic you don’t know ANYTHING about, and learn something new!

I’ll be reading: Cooling the Tropics: Ice, Indigeneity, and Hawaiian Refreshment by Hi’ilei Julia Kawehipuaakahaopulani Hobart

19. Social Justice & Activism: Read a book about a social issue, the history of an activist movement, or brush up on a guiding philosophy or ideology. Arm yourself with knowledge, besties, because I have a feeling we’re going to need it! if you need a good place to start, why not try Angela Davis' Race, Women & Class, Mariame Kaba's We Do This 'Til We Free Us, or Molly Smith and Juno Mac's Revolting Prostitutes?

I’ll be reading: White Feminism: From Suffragettes to Influencers and Who They Leave Behind by Koa Beck

20. Romance Novel: Listen to me. Fucking listen to me. I mean a ROMANCE. NOVEL. Not a novel that incidentally has a romance in it. Romance novel, motherfucker. Go check out the romance section and have some whimsy as two people fall in love through the most contrived series of events ever conceived. If you really need a romance that makes you feel smart (that’s still sexy and messy as hell), try Akwaeke Emezi’s You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty.

I’ll be reading: Go Luck Yourself by Sara Raasche  

21. Read and Make a Recipe: Could be a cookbook, could be a recipe you yoinked from the New York Times, could be something your grandparents lovingly wrote down by hand. Could be as complex or as simple as you like, just make something tasty! Some cookbooks I’ve enjoyed are Sohla El-Waylly’s Start Here, Dan Pashman’s Mission Impastable, and John Wang and Storm Garner’s The World Eats Here.

22. Horror: Slashers, zombies, haunted houses, creeping paranoia, you name it! It’s time to get spooky and scary with all kinds of things going bump in the night. Maybe this is the year to finally keep up with Dracula Daily? Not for me, I'm not doing that, but you could!

I’ll be reading: I Was A Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones

23. Published in the Aughts: A throwback, but not too far back. Read something published between 2000 and 2009. Maybe it’s time to finally get into Twilight? (For legal reasons, that’s a joke.)

I’ll be reading: The Sluts by Dennis Cooper, published in 2004

24. Historical Fiction: You know, fiction that takes place in a bygone era! Please remember, this isn’t just about reading a book that’s old; we have a separate prompt for that! This is about reading something that takes place in the past relative to the time it was written. Pride and Prejudice is historical to us, but was contemporary when Austen wrote it. Think of Brit Bennett's The Vanishing Half, Markus Zusak's The Book Thief, or history + a bit of fantasy in book's like R.F. Kuang's Babel.

I’ll be reading: The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

Bookseller or Librarian Recommendation: This one is fun, and something I always like to do when I’m travelling and visiting a new bookstore. Ask a bookseller or librarian to recommend something they’ve liked, and check it out! If going in person isn’t feasible, many bookstores and libraries have staff picks on their websites, and the Indie Next List is a monthly list of independent booksellers’ favorite new releases. 

I’ll be reading: The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich, which I bought at Erdrich’s bookstore, Birchbark Books, this summer :)

lastly: tagging people who asked to be tagged to make sure they didn't miss this! @thebisexualwreckoning @perfunctoryperfusions @reallyinkyhands come get your bingo sheet!

[heavenly-kazee]

List 5 things that make you happy, then put this in the askbox of the last 10 people who liked or reblogged something from you !!

Ohh hello there dear friend~ Sure! I have been feeling bored by the way and things have gotten me in a tough spot this month which is pretty sucks.

I'm not quite confident to say this out loud when it comes to communicating by speaking but I am comfortable by writing my thoughts since I'm able to find the appropriate words. Now then, the first thing that made me happy would usually be anime. Don't get me wrong, not all anime have to be action-oriented, I just happen to be very picky when it comes to genres so I don't really talk about the most trending on social media. The anime that makes me feel happy is mostly music and moral-based, similar to Bang Dream and RKDD. Tbh, RKDD was the one that made me deep dive into the Sherlockian world, it's also my first anime Sherlock experience so I am currently in many fandoms other than RKDD (I am most active in Sherlock & Co btw!)

The second one is obviously music. Like I mentioned about Bang Dream, I never once said this in all of my posts especially my bio blog so take this as a special post about my personal hobby. As a child, I dreamed of being a singer. My first exposure to music was one of those vocaloid songs where voicebank robots sing countless songs that were already made by their composers. Such as Wowaka (yes, I understand he had passed so I wanted to respect both his death and his music creation). I watched the "Deep Sea Girl" music video of Hatsune Miku singing underwater, I believe it's a Diva videogame that looks pretty HD but without the gaming on-screen. I was 8 years old when I found out about the existence of vocaloid, I became a super fan immediately and I couldn't stop singing since then. I even had another singer that I looked up to (it was mafumafu lol)

The third is quite complicated, I do love writing and drawing in general but I have a huge preference towards writing perhaps. I never started writing stories at all when I was a kid, majority of my early writing days were usually making role-plays in books, I have seen my cousin's exercise book being filled with so many words through the end except she doesn't know how to end the story lmao- I was intrigued, of course, I started making my own roleplay book when I was in 6th to 7th grade. I do tend to draw sometimes, drawing is just my hobby but I did not expect my writing just end in the hobby category but became my so-called "career" recently, I haven't stopped writing for years.

The fourth is pretty complicated as well but not too complicated as preferences. I genuinely loved animals, even if they were small or big. But due to my kid's self who's afraid of rabies.... Yeah, I personally wouldn't like dogs or big animals getting rabies so I opted for small feline creatures. They are dazzling and beautiful when they're the big animals of the kingdom, it's just not cup of my tea when it comes to their licking part. Cats are okay since I happened to have one. He was such a big sleepy cat that slept 24/7 lol- I wouldn't mind having bird pets as well, maybe an owl would do or the dove. I actually did rescue a small bird before but only to get eaten by the cat because my "mother" was careless and thought the bird could fly itself even though the wings were damaged. Well thank you smartie head

The last thing that made me happy was probably my brothers. I'm not quite sure why but maybe it's due to how I was raised by them. Considering both of my parents never seemed to care about me emotionally and mentally, they were only there when I was sick, needed something and wanted anything not long-lasting gifts. But when it comes to my brothers, they send me out of the house and make memories with me mostly compared to my parents. My dad did try to send me out of the house but that was in vain because he tried to make me shopping excessively so I am in the most unfortunate way currently. My brothers taught me how to be myself and put my happiness first, that could be the reason why I am too empathetic and compassionate to anyone because I don't want them to experience the same loneliness. I looked up to them a lot of times, they made me feel so many emotions at once and it's the first time I feel so loved.

I am sorry for the last paragraph, it's quite a personal topic for me to talk about even though it has to be said. I do love my family but I can't be safe to say when both of my parents just won't try to spend time with me emotionally. Maybe the correct word for me is probably just "investment", I know so well what it feels like to be their investment, even though I never like money in the first place. They forced me into things I wouldn't like so as a natural child would do, I rebelled.

I apologize if this post feels longer, sometimes I just want to elaborate on why they make me happy for a reason and stating facts just won't do the trick. Call me a detailed person, but I happen to love explaining over single short paragraphs.

[jerzwriter]

What's forever for?

I apologize in advance for this one... I blame @choicesflashfics lol It's really my fault. I sent in the prompt, so I felt I had to write it, but nothing came to mind. When I rolled out of bed this morning afternoon, this was in my head, and I just went with it. Remember: It's an AU. lol This fic has turned into a little separate universe. You can find more details about it, and associated fics, here.

Book:                   Open Heart (Post Series)

Pairing:                Tobias Carrick x F!MC (Casey)

Rating:                 Teen

Category:            Angst/One-Shot/AU

Warnings: Breakup

Summary:   It's their last morning together in the home they had called their own. As Casey goes through a multitude of emotions, she comes to understand what the future can be.

Words: 2,418

A/N: They're kind of above, but this is for @choicesflashfics, prompt: “I didn’t see it then, but you were saying goodbye the entire time.” Also participating in @choicesjanuarychallenge Day 4 - Break-up. Now I'm going to eat ice cream.

Not an inspiration - but this OLD song was in my head non-stop as I wrote. Hence, the title. I'm going to get ice cream.

What's Forever For by Michael Murphy WFF? Universe Info & Masterlist Tobias & Casey Masterlist All Works Masterlist

It was a beautiful day. After a cold and dreary winter, the sun was shining bright, filling the kitchen with an ethereal glow. The air was still crisp, but so much warmer. It was the first time in forever that she didn’t need a coat when she took little Cocoa out for his morning walk. But of all days, it had to be today? Another cruel irony sealed her belief that even mother nature was mocking her. Was it a sadistic sense of humor… or perhaps just one more thing that betrayed her?

She chuckled ruefully as she wiped down the countertop that didn’t need to be cleaned. She had wiped it down at least a hundred times since aborting her attempts at sleep last night. But her hands needed something to do, anything to keep her mind off of her heart. She didn’t think it was breaking anymore… it was already broken into a million pieces. Now, she wondered if it had ceased to exist. So she dragged the rag over it again, staring at the specs of glitter scattered throughout the granite just one last time.

Glitter. In granite. It seemed silly then, and it seemed more foolish now. He thought it was a great idea. Something bright and sparkly on a surface that was normally mundane. It was so much like her… he had said… bright, full of life…sparkling fairy dust wherever she went. And as that memory drifted in, then out of her mind, a gentle snort escaped her. So much for a mindless task whisking her away; there was no escape.

A slow, even hum replaced the deafening silence that had filled the air. Then muffled voices ushered her back to the present. His moving truck had arrived. She poured a tall glass of ice water and gulped it down, hoping the chill would stop the tears from springing from her eyes. But it had no effect. She could still hear his voice, buoyant, almost cheerful… how could it be? The moving men were laughing pleasantly. Of course, they were. He made everyone feel at home. He certainly had that effect on her. In the beginning, in the middle…and even now, if she let him… at the end. But she couldn’t let him.  

How? How she wondered as she stared out the kitchen window, cursing the birds for singing their song. How could he be so bright on this very morning? Even if it was just a façade… and she was sure it was a façade… just like so many things had been. Yet he still found the energy to muster it up, to put on an act so those in his presence would feel comfortable. Anyone looking at her right now would just want to run away. No one likes being near grief. But she couldn’t do it today. It took all of her conviction to will herself to breathe. To keep herself from falling apart and becoming a total mockery. That she could manage. But a smile? A corny joke? Right now, she felt they were years away.

The voices moved upstairs, and she could hear footsteps making their way around the rooms that had been the stage of her life. They went up and down, carrying boxes that contained pieces of a life now gone out the front door until there was nothing left. It wouldn’t be long now. This big old place, so much bigger than they ever needed… but he insisted. And she caved. Like the glitter on the counter, it made him happy, and everything seemed bright. So why would she say no? Now, the rooms were being emptied, just like her heart, and every muffled sound echoed like thunder through the vacant halls. They made a choice together, and he had left long ago, in spirit if not body, so why… why was this so hard.

She shut her eyes tight, and a single, hot tear rolled down her cheek. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. None of it was. Everyone told her she’d be OK. A brighter tomorrow awaited her. This chapter was closed, but a new one was beginning… and she knew it was true…but not today. Today, she cursed the sun, which was doing its best to warm her frozen soul, and wanted to scream to frighten the singing birds and happy movers away. How dare they! How dare they be merry and bright… TODAY! They could do it next month, next week, maybe even tomorrow they could try. But to do it in front of her… today! Today? It was an offense that rattled her soul. But like so many days that preceded it, she had to garner the strength to ignore the world's insensitivity of carrying on while her world had crashed to an end.  

Her cell phone vibrated, skating softly along the shining countertop, and a beautiful picture appeared. Her precious little boy, bundled up in a coat and hat despite the mercury being at 60 degrees. Smiling without a care in the world, he descended the slide in the park by her mother’s home. Then the impossible occurred. A small smile appeared on her lips.

I wanted to let you know I took Kyle to the diner for his favorite pancakes, and now we’re at the park. He’s having a great day. He greeted everyone we met along the street and laughed with joy as the birds scattered when he chased them. They don’t understand he just wants to be their friend. Still, their chirping made him smile. It’s going to be all right, sweetheart. I made your favorite brownies, and we’ll have them tonight. It’s going to be all right.

Lost in thought, she didn’t hear the guilty footsteps approaching behind her until it was too late. If she had, she might have rushed out the kitchen door to escape him, but then again, maybe not. She could have stayed at her mother’s last night; she could be with her and Kyle at the park. But she felt like she had to be here. Perhaps it was for closure, or maybe she was a bit of a masochist… or both. But no matter, it was too late to run away.

“That’s the last of my things,” he said in a voice so low it was almost unrecognizable.

“Um-huh,” she managed, wiping a tear away from her eye before he could see.

He looked at the phone on the counter, and she could feel his demeanor change, even though her back still faced him.

“Look at him,” he smiled. “He looks like he’s having a great day.”

“Yeah,” Casey sniffled. “I’m glad he is.”

“I guess someone’s gotta be, right?”

The sadness in his voice was unmistakable, and she didn’t know if she wanted to scream or cry. HOW DARE HE! Mr. Sunshine and Bright. Mr. Everything Will Be OK. The man who had lit up her world, warmed her heart, and ignited a passion she never knew before. Mr. Fake it Until You Make It, and never let them see you cry…. Mr. It’s just not going to work for us, Casey. Mr. I didn’t want to break your heart. How dare he show such emotion right now! It was over, mostly by his design, and all she needed for him was to leave, so she could move on. Because she had to move on… if she didn’t… she wasn’t sure she could survive.

“I suppose,” she said, quickly shuffling across the room; his proximity a dagger in her heart.

She hated him. She hated him so much. But not in the way one hates a stranger or those who wish to do us harm. She hated him in the unique way one hates the person we’re destined to love our entire lives, even when they’ve hurt us so. She knew she’d get over him; she knew she’d move on. But she also knew that her heart would always bear his name. That years from now, she’d still wake up a hundred times expecting to find him at her side, and what remained of her heart would still shatter a little more each time it realized he wasn’t there. How could the man she loved… adored… so much deliver her this much pain? She hated him. She hated all right. But she hated herself more… because she couldn’t stop loving him if she tried.

“Are you staying here tonight?”

“No. I’m staying at my Mother’s. My stuff will be out on Monday, but… last night was my last night here. I… I can’t be here anymore.”

“I know,” he sighed, an aching sigh that burned as it escaped his chest. The façade he showed the world was collapsing all at once. Not everyone saw this side of Tobias Carrick, but Casey did. The side that wasn’t jovial and always bright, the side that became angered and showed despair. She once thought it was a blessing… he loved her so much that he could be his true self. But now, how she yearned to go back. Back to the days when he was the smile that brightened her day and the bombastic voice echoing down the hall at work, always bringing a smile to her face. When he was the laughter and the song that filled their favorite spot, drawing every single eye their way. She recalled the envy in them all… they wanted to be her, or him… them… they were everything everyone else wished to be. She wanted to go back to a day when that’s all that they were… when that was all that she knew… but if she did… would she make different choices? Would she trade away the joy for the pain bound to follow? Was a life of heartache too great a price to pay to have experienced a love like theirs had been?

“Casey?” he said tenderly, reaching over to tap her arm when she didn’t reply. She hadn’t heard a word he said.

Shaken, she jolted back and saw the embarrassment and pain on his face when he realized what his touch had brought her now. They both looked away in shame.

“Uhm… I’m sorry… I didn’t hear, you… I….”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said sadly. Hands in his pockets, he rolled back and forth on the balls of his feet… she had never seen him look this uncomfortable, so unsure… not even on that night he told her he had no more left to give. “I guess…. I guess this is it,” his voice cracked. “I hope you know how sorry I am. I never wanted….”

Casey's eyes shut as she shook her head and held up her hand. Silencing him without a word.

“No,” she whispered. “No. Uh-uh. We’ve done this… we’re not doing it again.”

Abashed, he looked to his feet, swallowing the tears that would soon consume him. She was his home no more.  

“It’s not even your fault,” her voice creaked. “I can’t even blame… it’s not even your fault. In so, so many ways… I’m to blame. I loved you, Tobias. I loved you so much that I ignored every sign, and there were always signs. When you told me you couldn’t believe this was you, what we had was never your kind of thing… I knew it then, but I didn’t want to believe it. When you’d say that you didn’t understand what I saw in you when all I saw were the million things that I wanted to see, the million beautiful things that make you you. Oh, I loved those things, Tobias. I still do. I loved them so much that I overlooked the parts that frightened me, the parts that would have made me wonder if we would be standing right here, right now. You told me I deserved better, and I didn’t want to believe that. But… perhaps I did. I didn’t see it then, but you were saying goodbye the entire time. This was never the life you wanted. There was no way it could work for you, so I’m sorry… I’m sorry for trying to make you fit someplace you didn’t belong.”

“No! No,” he interrupted. The ever-present light in his eyes diminished, replaced with a glint of tears as he approached her. “Don’t ever say that. I belonged. Just because it didn’t work doesn’t mean I didn’t want it… or that it shouldn’t have been. You… you and Kyle… you were…” He bit his lip and sniffled, his tears now falling freely as he slumped over the counter. “It was….”

Something switched inside Casey at that moment… seeing him shattered before her, recognizing his heartbreak was different but no less painful than hers. It would take her years before she understood it, but something had changed.

“It was a dream,” she finished, placing her hand on his shoulder. “It was a beautiful dream, and, despite the pain, I’m so glad I got to share it with you. And look,” she grabbed her phone. “Look at what we made together. Kyle is the best of us, the very best, and while we may not be forever… he is, and… well, I guess that means… in some way… we are too. It’s not the way we planned, but….”

He stood up slowly, his sanguine smile encouraging her to create one of her own. “We are,” he said with a graveled voice. “It’s not what we planned, but Kyle… and you…. you are both my forever.”

Neither could tell you how much time had passed. They stood together, clinging to each other as if they were afraid they’d disappear before them. Months of anger, resentment, and fear melted away with each tear they shed. Each knowing it was time to cast the bitterness aside and build a bridge for what was to come. This wasn’t the plan. It wasn’t their dream when they had said vows years before, but they’d be a family forever, and a family they’d remain… even if a new chapter was beginning.

Casey was the first to pull away. Grabbing a wad of paper towels, she handed some to him and kept a bunch for herself.   She blew her nose much louder than anticipated, and their laughter joined the harsh sound, echoing throughout the halls where they created the story of their lives.

“Come on,” she said, wrapping her arm around his waist. “I’ll walk you to your car.”

“I’d like that,” he smiled.

They each peered around one last time, leaving their home the same way they once walked in: arm in arm, to a bright future that was yet unwritten.  

A/N2: Y'all notice I gave them one son. Nothing like their three little girls in their REAL story. Becuase how dare I fucking do this to my babies. Don't talk to me... lol :)

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[muu-kun]

Silver lining.

Ashamed of his own melancholy, and terribly afraid of gaining the notoriety of being consumed by it, he had aimed to always find appreciation in any less than ideal situation. A life lesson he'd have been privileged to learn as they provided the tools to assist him in instances thereafter. He'd maintained steam through copious amounts of hurt with that jovial inspired mindset for years by then; however, he found his lightness falling faint even after having it warmly bound in his grasp just seconds prior. Somehow.. the pain in his heart he felt while under the gaze of Sullivan had just been too much to persevere through at that moment.

He'd caught its disappearance occurring right at the proposed invitation into the other's home. Though the intention was known to be made from a kindhearted gesture, there came an overwhelming wave of sadness over his gentle demeanor nonetheless. Did he want to step inside their place of living? Technically, yes, but.. there also arrived the deep rooted desire to be perceived in any other space than that one. He'd have almost rather been suddenly picked up by a gigantic bird of prey and thrown into a volcano located miles upon miles away, yet the explanations behind his internal dramatics remained silenced.

Fear was responsible for that one. Certainty over whether or not it resulted in selective mutism to take over was hazy; however, he wasn't about to test whether or not he had the means to be capable of verbal expression at a time in which he was consumed by an insurmountable amount of shame centered on his voice. Not of the sound of it in literal terms, but rather the unknowing of what irreparable damage it could have caused while under the perception of the male he'd disappointed enough times already by then. He'd heard it in their voice, and saw it in their features, enough times by then that, frankly, he'd found he was at a loss of trust in himself that he could've possibly been capable of receiving any other kind of feedback.

There were no imagined up scenarios left at his disposal in which the words coming to mind existed as the stepping stones out of the label of burdensome company. He kept it completely to himself that the concept of being perceived within the four walls of Sully's place of residence was of exact comparison to the tightness of a throat brought on by an impending sob. That the loving memories to exist in the air by means of the constant movement of time were ice cold to his touch as he'd felt frozen out of having his own throughout the many comments and glances made on his character. He kept it equally a secret that such reminded him of a specific painful memory of the past as he did that he did, in fact, care enough about the taller male's opinion of him enough to negatively impact his eating and sleeping habits in the process. What good would any of it have been?

The truth had been that he did not consider Sully to be company in which comfort was a possibility. As a teen, he'd carefully curated a journal in which he separated those in his life into the categories of who could be, and couldn't be cried to, when he was upset. Had he kept up with such a process, he'd have admittedly placed the raven under the latter category. There initially been spirit to ignore the existence of that realization, yet the adversity to do so with a brave face ceased when he could no longer hold the weight of the remainder that he was their unrelenting problem and not their friend.

"No.. Sorry.."

For being a chicken. Running away-- always and again. Never getting any right, no matter how many times the minimum is expressed in my direction. Filling your life with the sad and the mad, and never with what makes you sit down at the end of your day to say, I'm glad. That the me that wanted to meet you is one you are better off without. That I will have made you go from being worried I'd hate you to living a life that will be far more complete when I go. My goodbye will come with a radiance greater felt than the stressfulness of being the recipient of my hellos. My soul is a sad song that has cleared an entire auditorium of people. There is a universe where I still make you smile. I hope that the joy of the Muu of me and the Sully of you transcends someday. I hope we are still here when it does.

"I.. I only want to say sorry to Sully, and then I want to go home.."

"I have to start with being sorry for being a projecting making brat. I.. actually don't remember what the projections was anymore, but I know I did make them just as much as I know that they were hurtful no matter what they were. The big of the Earth is already with hurtfulness that it wasn't very nice of Muu to bring it to close quarters, too."

There was more. He just had to place his mind on what they were..

"I'm sorry you had to be vilified from the punishment of being the center of broken record sounding problems. At least.. that's what I think the big boy of yours was trying to say by calling me a victim complex. Those things that were bothering me then do still hurt me now, but.. I know to be keeping them to myself as you isn't the responsible for fixing them."

Though last, it was not the least thought upon. He'd definitely not forgotten to make mention of it.

"I'm sorry for asking you to snuggle me so many times when you didn't want to any of the times. I know there is not an allowed sadness over it as Sully is not of being malicious when he of firmly saying no, it's.. it's just.. hard being left out of things that the rest of everybody qualifies for so naturally. No missteps.."

"Can I go home now? I'd like to make the few steps of a head start before Neffie's senses kick in and she knows I did not go inside of Sully's home. I just can't do it.. Right now.. I feel my insides are trying to become my outsides, and.. and my eyes isn't able to focus straight. My brain is making too many words that it wants to make be word soup poems.. I think maybe I need to take my medicines and have a fucking nap. ..Don't tell my Nana that I said that.. Ah.. I'm still very glad to have visited you today. It has been.. wonderful."

He'd never been mad--though, recently he'd been annoyed. Immature had been the proper descriptor of Muu's behavior recently with him, and he sulked without wanting to amend any of his actions. There was never a conclusion either; he'd run off the second it was less than sunshine or positivity.

Since their last conversation, Sullivan had decided to put his foot down. He'd stumble over his own tongue out of habit, he knew, but he was done apologizing. He was done over-explaining himself. He was done asking for things. He'd asked for that respect. He'd asked for a conversation. He'd asked that they try and be friends.

Muu was aware--had to be after the fifth time of it being said. Mental health and disabilities could be respected and considered, but it didn't give the right to mistreat someone or breach a boundary repeatedly. Even more so, it didn't mean that the person had to put up with it. Sullivan grew tired of trying to mend something that Muu only wanted his way.

So he stood at the doorstep with Muu wordless. He didn't mind waiting patiently there in case there was more that wanted to be said. He knew that it took Muu time to put his thoughts together sometimes. He was the very same. Presented with a phone instead of words, he didn't mind. He read it as requested.

And his shoulder slumped some. Not necessarily in fatigue. Just... clueless about what he was to do. He still wanted to keep his foot firmly on the ground concerning this, but...if Muu was willing to try. If trying to hear him out again would make it better, he would do his best. Granted, there was nothing positive done yet. It seemed that he wanted to.

"If you want to discuss it, verbal or non-verbal, then I am happy to, and thank you for coming over." He started, trying to keep Muu in mind with what he presented. He was trying hard to be fair. He was more fair than he should have been. "Do you want to come inside?"

[bob-artist]

So I juuuust discovered that iPhones have some sort of AI that tries to categorize your photos based on subject?

The categories it created for my gallery: food, animals, birds, cats, dogs, cars, snow, and forests.  Um...

Sooo, I was curious.  How good a job did my phone do?

100% success rate on forests and cars - even with the car photos on Hard Mode.  That said, a good 3/4 of the car photos were really other photos that just happened to have cars in the background...

Grade Forests: A+ Cars: A

So how did it do on snow?

Meh, most of the photos really are of snow.  I can forgive it for including the ferrets’ Extremely Soft Mat, and the one from the bad year Poke decided to lay eggs on a pile of puppy pads she shredded in the bathroom...

Snow: B

Now let’s get to the good stuff.  The vast majority of my photos are of animals, so let’s see how it did with the “animal” category.  Are these animals...?

ANIMAL ANIMAL ANIMAL

They seem to have correctly marked my own pets, my family’s pets, and all the random geese and chipmunks outside too!  I’m very happy.

Animal: A+++

But now let’s make things harder.  They’ve put the animals into three subcategories: Cat, Dog, and Bird.  Because as we all know, every animal on the planet is one of those three.

Let’s start with Bird.  My phone says I have 611 bird photos, which I can believe.  Well, the preview pic they chose up at the top of the post was from the Parrot Paradise Youtube channel, since I screenshotted it to send to someone.  But let’s see if they found all the pics of my own birds!

Hmm those are some funky birds.

Should’ve been an easy A.  I’m disappointed.

Bird: C

Okay, time for dogs!  I have high hopes since the preview pic they chose was indeed a dog.  Plus my mom and brother have dogs, so I’ve taken a lot of pictures of them.  But I kind of doubt I have 224 as my phone claims.....

Dog?

d.... og.....

Okay, well... to be fair

Tanukis/raccoon dogs have “dog” in their name, and winter Tux is clearly a raccoon dog, so... partial credit?  I’ll round up just for that.

Dog: C-

Now finally, the last of the animals: the Cat category.  I’m really curious how my phone thinks I have over 300 cat pics, since my life is currently woefully devoid of cats. :(  But let’s see those cats!

Hmm uh....

Well, I’m glad it correctly identified my One actual cat pic as a cat, but...

Wow so many cats.

And call me crazy, but

Am I the only one who thinks this cat and that bird look a little alike...?

Anyway, a 1 out of 382 shouldn’t be a passing grade, but... catsnake.  So we’ll bump it up.

Cat: D-

Whew okay... that’s it for animals.  So we only have one last category, and that’s food.  High hopes again, since the preview pic was vegetable plate reference I took for Cooking with Belmont.

Anyway this is dangerous because I’m getting hungry.  What should I eat tonight...

So... basically ALL my succulent photos (except the sedum reflexum which is actually edible) and a few ferrets-in-the-ball-pit photos...  Sorry but I gotta give a fail for that one.

Food: F

Summary

Captchas shouldn’t use cars as tests anymore since clearly AI has it figured out better than I do.  Forests are easy too.  Anything white and fluffy is snow.

Birds are birds, cats are cats, dogs are dogs and cats, and ferrets are dogs, cats, birds, and food.  I should eat all my succulents for dinner tonight, and I need more cats in my life.

The end.

[dxsole]

That would comfort her; Iona was never entirely sure which category she was meant to be sorted into. Mankind had called them beasts, damned harpies that picked at the fly-infested corpses of their brothers on the battlefield. But did she not walk on two feet like them? Did she not think like them? Did she not speak to them in their own tongue?

"We are very old." As old as the crumbling structures back in her homeland. She remembered when those temples were erected, when they were occupied, and when they were torn down. Birth, life, and destruction all in one memory. "I am a daughter of Nyx. We were the ravens of the gods." She always liked that particular description. Those big, black birds always seemed so regal in their perches— very befitting for the children of a goddess. "Now I have no one. But I still must feed." Clearly, as she keeps gnawing at that hand. She bites through it like cheese until she's at the wrist, snapping the bone there just as easily as the rest.

She could polish off the entire body within three hours without even having to loosen a button. Her hunger was neverending and never perfectly satisfied. "I have not heard of a tupilaq." Although the word was very fun to say (not that her expression changed from the unblinking calm). As she chews thoughtfully, she thinks about what this all may mean. He is alone as well. A creature like her, according to him. And he seemed to kill many people. She did not know yet what drove him specifically, but she gets his point before he even makes the offer.

It's been like this for centuries, even with the few killers who stumbled upon her. They marveled. Some attempted to cage her— the difference between them and this tupilaq was obvious though; he didn't seem to be slipping into madness the longer he spoke to her. No hint of anger or mania in his voice. No twitching of the eye, no shakiness in his breathing. He was immune to her.

Very interesting. "...I do live on the streets...but I am not made for soft and warm." No, she had been born and lived in a dark, cold cave until she finally gathered enough courage to step into the light. "If you wish to provide lodging," There's another bite and chew. "a closet will do."

"And I can promise obedience. And I can promise loyalty...to an extent." She's at the elbow now, her neck twisting to accommodate the round end of the ulna before there's a resounding crunch. "If you are ever killed, it would be my honor to eat you."

"Hello." He approached her like one would a wild animal— she's seen it countless times before. It wasn't their fault; it was inevitable that everyone who saw what she did would assume she might bite if they ventured too close. Luckily for everyone, she never sinks her teeth into living flesh.

He does assure her that he isn't trying to take her dinner and her grip on the corpse loosens. "Then for that, I am grateful. I am very hungry."

Her eyes were the first indicator to most that she wasn't quite right; dark sclera with copper-pink pupils that seemed to catch on to even the most minuscule amounts of light to flash like a wolf's in the night. The second indicator was always her voice; flat affect regardless of the situation, almost tinny. Her dear, celestial mother didn't want her daughters to perfectly mimic Prometheus' creations after all.

While he assessed her, continuing to look her over like a prize horse, Iona took the brief moment of silence to bite a finger off their mutual friend, chewing thoughtfully and quietly crunching through the delicate bones, eventually swallowing it down without so much as a blink.

He puts his own fingers close to her mouth and she allows it, if only because his vibrant, living flesh would be unappetizing. "I am not a thing. I am a Keres." And it's not a surprise he's yet to meet another of her kind— after so many years, all of her sisters have died off. For some, the old Greeks knew how to properly kill them and destroyed them in their prime.

For others, the fear of venturing out of their forgotten cavern proved to be their downfall, leaving them to starve and decay, one consuming the other until none were left. Iona supposes she's lucky to have decided to brave the light of humanity instead of staying stuck in the darkness.

"There are none like me left." A sad sentiment but one she has grown to accept after all these centuries. "...I am not afraid but I also do not know who you are. Perhaps I am meant to be afraid." Her dark eyes dart to the corpse. "Was I not meant to eat them? You left them to the elements...to decay. You should have known the scavengers would come for them. The flies, the rats, and me."