#but holy god you lot drive me fucking bonkers

[blackkatmagic]

If you're the type of fan who demands to know why an author didn't include Obi-Wan in fics where he isn't even a tagged character, you're not a fan. You're just fucking insufferable.

[isackwhy]

ok ok, let me cook, let me on the fryer. so drunk driving stream (your girl got carried away, lacked details my bad bestie boo). isaacwhy, big t goat, and yumi. i’m talking giggles GALORE. i’m talking isaac appearance on readers stream? i’m talking, accidental hard launch? on stream? drunk? again, my apologies for lack of detail in the last four or so worded suggestion, lots of love 😘

anon. ily.

isaacwhy x drunk driving stream! reader hc’s

u last minute agreed to a drunk driving stream w 2 of ur best friends yumi and big t while ur bf isaac was at ur place

usually he’d be the third in this trio but u kidnapped him

you’re more than half a four loko down. isaac is a full four loko down. sitting on discord on his phone in ur living room so that chat doesn’t know he’s at ur place

(even tho they all have a suspicion about yall)

“no, no!” you drunkenly yell as your truck spins around on the highway

tanner and yumi are giggling their asses off, watching your truck flip to the side

you take another gulp of ur drink, gagging at the taste

“y/n, you’re a fucking moron!” yumi laughs

you gasp, and look into your webcam

it’s only then when u realize how drunk u look

“holy shit. oh. i’m so drunk,” you mumble as u repair ur truck

“really? couldn’t tell—“

“tanner i’ll—i’ll—kill u,” u stutter

“y/n, stop drinking,” isaac says

“ummm fuck u,” u giggle, downing another gulp

“y/nnnnn!” isaac yells. also drunk.

“come ‘ere. come into—the room,” you slur, not even realizing you’ve uncovered that isaac is in your house

“huh? are you sure?” isaac asks but you can hear him getting up

“oh god she’s getting isaac. oh god,” yumi groans

“k—y—s,” you spell out slowly, making tanner burst out laughing

isaac walks in and his tall ass is covered so u don’t worry about ur webcam

“hiii isaac,” you smile up at him. a part of u is conscious about ur secret relationship to teh viewers while another part is very drunk and wanting your boyfriend like rn

“hii y/n,” isaac smirks down at u, “i think you’re good on the drinks.”

you groan, gulping down more four loko, “you CANNOTTT tell me what to do.”

“oh no. they’re in trouble—OH SHIT I CRASHED,” tanner yells into the mic.

you glance over at chat, seeing your ship name w isaac being spammed and u hide ur eye roll

“you’re drunk too,” u point at ur boyfriend but realize ur vision has gone blurry

“not like you,” isaac laughs. the webcam can see from his chest down as he crosses his arms in his tank top

ur going bonkers

“i—need to pee. i think,” u get up but u stumble. isaac holds out his hands for you and you try and stabilize urself

“you okay?” isaac laughs, holding you

“i’m great!” you quickly saying, stepping away from him

you take three steps away from him, nearly fall until he catches you and all you can do is giggle

isaac is just looking down at you with a small smile, “okay, stream. over. come on—“

“no!!! wait till i get back baby.”

yeah u don’t even realize what u said bc ur just staring up at isaac with a fond smile while isaac has the widest eyes and ur chat has increased in speed

u can faintly hear yumi and tanner yelling

“what?” you ask with a head tilt, “i gotta—pee,@ u say still clueless, “entertain chat!” u say as u walk away, still oblivious

isaac stands there, stunned that you called him baby on stream. subsequently exposing your relationship

it was gonna happen at some point but he wasn’t expecting it while ur both drunk

“chat—chat. um,” he stands awkwardly until u come back

u stumble back in, still clueless while ur bf looks borderline horrified

“y/n, end stream please,” isaac grabs your shoulders

“hm? wha—okay,” you walk over, “guys i’m too drunk according to isaac so i’m gonna end….”

ur eyes fall on ur chat and the word baby and isaac and y/n are dating being spammed

oh fuckkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

u whip ur head towards isaac when you realize what you did

“okay—yup! bye chat!” and you quickly end stream.

once u know ur in the clear, ur head falls your hands, “fuck. i’m sorry babe.”

“it’s okay. you’re drunk. it was gonna happen because we’re both dumbasses at some point,” isaac assures u.

you put ur headset back on and yumi and tanner are too drunk to help you so you turn the whole pc off and slam into your bed, face first into the pillows

“i’m staying off twitter for like—ever,” you mumble into the pillow

“eh. we have a lot less weirdos. you’ll be alright,” isaac rubs your back

[carriagelamp]

Weirdly enough, I often find myself reading less in the summer, since I have more time than I do during the rest of the year to do other things. Also artfight has been eating up more than a bit of my free time! But here’s a collection a graphic novels I sat around on the hammock reading, and some novels I finished up...

(Everyone go read All Systems Red, holy crow guys)

A Whale of the Wild

The “sequel” to A Wolf Called Wander, though it doesn’t actually connect to the previous novel except in the stylistic/thematic sense. A Whale of the Wild is very much a standalone novel. And a pretty decent one! Personally, I think I liked Wolf more, but this one was a pleasant, informative read, with just the right amount of crushing dread sprinkled in. It’s about a young orca called Vega who is learning to become a new wayfinder for her pod but who still has a lot to learn, especially in an ocean that is becoming increasingly hostile to orcas and the other sealife that live alongside humans. When a devastating earthquake hits, Vega and her little brother find themselves separated from their family, lost in a now horrifyingly unfamiliar environment, and fighting starvation as the salmon that sustain them become more and more unreliable. It’s a desperate fight for survival as they search for food and their missing family. This book is written for a middle grade level, and does a really good job of putting the current environmental crisis into an animal’s perspective while giving the readers something to hope for.

The Adventure Zone: The Crystal Kingdom

Every July I eagerly anticipate the next Adventure Zone graphic novel. This one is for their fourth arc, The Crystal Kingdom, in which Magnus, Taako, and Merle respond to a SOS from a floating laboratory that is gradually being consumed by crystals and which threatens the entire world should it fall into the ocean. Carey Pietsch’s art continues to be absolutely fantastic, so beautifully and hilariously expressive, and this one delivers some great Merle moments, lots of Carey Fangbattle, and, of course, Kravtiz. Kravitz, my beloved…

Anyway, I obviously always recommend these. If you’ve never gotten into The Adventure Zone, I totally recommend either trying these graphic novels — or even better, just go listen to the podcast because it really is both hilarious and creates a shockingly good and heart-wrenching story by the end.

All Systems Red

I’ve seen The Murderbot Diaries on my dash occasionally, and it always looked interesting, but a friend’s recommendation finally compelled me to read the first novella of the series. And holy shit y’all. Absolutely the best book I’ve read this month, it’s amazing. Mind-blowingly good. Also, if you’re like me and want a good audiobook, it’s a nice three-hour listen, very chill!

Anyway, All Systems Red is about a Security Unit, an artificially created being that’s part-organic part-mechanical and all-company-owned-and-controlled. However, self-named “Murderbot” has managed to hack into the system that suppresses its own will, and is now coasting along, doing the least amount of work its job requires not to be noticed, while preferring to spend all its time watching the hours and hours of soap operas it has downloaded into its brain. And it’s a tolerable if somewhat dull life, until the science team that it's currently rented to is attacked and the whole mission goes pear-shaped. Suddenly Murderbot has to scramble to keep its humans alive… while its humans scramble with the realization that their “SecUnit” isn’t actually a mindless robot like they had all believed...

This story is both gripping and hilariously funny. Murderbot has such a unique voice and perspective and it’s an absolute pleasure to follow its story. I reallly need to read the next book...

Asterix and the Banquet

A classic. I was startled when I realized I hadn’t actually read this Asterix story… but hell I’m not gonna complain, it lets me read one of the originals for the first time again! In this Asterix volume, the Indomitable Gauls and the Romans end up arranging a bet — the Romans intend to keep them under siege, trapped in their village, while Asterix is confident that he can easily evade them… and will prove it by going on a tour around all of Gaul, collecting iconic foods from each region in order to return and put on a fine banquet. So we get a fantastic adventure in which Asterix and Obelix run all over the country, pursued the whole way, while making cheerful stops at the various eateries along the way. Also the first book Dogmatix shows up in! All around, a wonderful read, fun like all the best Asterix comics are.

Beauty Pop v4

A less impressive graphic novel. The first Beauty Pop is one of my guilty pleasure manga because… it really is pretty stupid but in the best possible ways. I mean, the whole thing is framed around hairstyling battles, like a shojo sports manga without the sports. It’s bonkers. Unfortunately, the series does not really manage to hold up, and it really begins to feel repetitive and dragging as it continues… as a lot of series like this do. *shrug* Unsurprising but still kinda disappointing I suppose. The building three-way romantic tension is mildly interesting if for no other reason than the main character Does Not Notice and Does Not Care about any of it, which is amusing and refreshing.

FRNCK v5

Now this series only gets better and better as it goes. This is the first book of the second arc, and somehow the danger just seems to be ramping up and up and up. The cavefamily have lost their home… as well as Léonard and Gargouille. Heartbroken, shocked, and angry, Franck is the one who ends up shouldering the blame for their presumed deaths as the others mourn. Things only get worse when Franck finds himself separated from the family, and in the territory of another tribe, this one hostile and cannibalistic...

Haikyuu v5

I continue to read this series because it continues to be charming… though it is beginning to feel, maybe, just a little repetitive. Kind of an inevitability with sports manga. But so far it continues to be good enough to overcome that. I’m not sure what I can say about this series that I haven’t already, so I’ll simply say it continues to be one of the most impressive sports manga I’ve read, and the author does a fantastic job of creating engaging characters, fleshed out teams, and really compelling relationships. I do genuinely adore all the main members of Crows, along with a number of characters from the rival teams as well. And of course it has some kickass volleyball scenes that are just drawn so dramatically they can’t help but take your breath away a little.

M*A*S*H Goes To Maine

Meh. The original book of the series was actually quite good in my opinion. This one… considerably less so. The first part I enjoyed more, since it was about Hawkeye, Trapper, Duke, and Oliver Jones trying to set up the FinestKind Clinic and Fishmarket in Crabapple Cove (which… is just the best premise I could have ever asked for). However, the book spends most of its time describing the quirky lives and times of other people living in the area and I… just… don’t care. It was funny at times but… I just don’t care. I wanted to hear more about the main cast. Also I found this book felt more racist and misogynistic than the first which also put me off :/ Wouldn’t bother if I were you. Go read the first book instead, or better yet just watch the TV show which is an obvious banger.

My Heart’s in the Highlands

I have had this on my “currently reading” list for so long but I’m officially giving up. It’s a really good book in theory but my god I can’t get over the pacing.

It’s about Lady Jane, a woman studying medicine in Edinburgh in 1888, and who suddenly finds herself back in the Highlands in the 13th century. Lost and confused, Jane is now at the mercy Clan Donald’s hospitality while she tries to adjust to this new world and hunts for her broken time machine. Fortunately, this hospitality include a burgeoning friendship with a red-haired warrior woman, Ainslie nic Dòmhnaill, who opens Jane’s eyes to the way the world could be.

Listen. It drives me nuts. This book should be completely up my alley, it has everything I like — IT HAS ALL OF ITS HISTORICAL FOOTNOTES CITED AT THE BACK, LITTLE EXTRA DETAILS ABOUT EVERY CHAPTER. THAT’S MY SHIT RIGHT THERE. DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I LIKE BEING ABLE TO GO OVER HISTORICAL DETAILS?? AND WELL RESEARCHED FOOTNOTES?? And yet it doesn’t. Fucking. Work for me. It has a kickass Scottish warrior lady as a love interest! It has a badass lady doctor! It has fish-out-of-water culture shock! But it also has a completely meandering plot, no sense of building tension, and a romance that just happens out of nowhere and feels completely unearned and uninteresting.

I would genuinely just rather read Outlander again, which I know has its own host of problems, but at least Outlander felt exciting and interesting and tense and funny. The romance built in fits and starts, it was complicated, and kept me interested. That book had me hooked (and has me hooked every time I reread it) whereas this book I’ve been sadly picking at for months like its a plate of overcooked spinach. This felt like an attempt at a queer, historically accurate knockoff which I would normally be super into but which just could not stick the landing.

Moomin on the Riviera

My first time actually reading anything from the Moomin canon. I have zero idea how to feel about it! It certainly is as feral as I’ve heard described! Overall, I think I enjoyed it but it sure made me feel strange emotions I didn’t know existed. I’m not even going to try to describe it. Read it if you want a batshit insane anti-capitalist comic.

Surviving the City

This was good in some areas, less good in others. It had a very interesting indigenous perspective on life in the modern city, the foster system, and The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women issue, which I’ve never seen handled in a book before. Something about the pacing did not completely click with me and I found myself getting easily distracted, but it’s definitely worth the read just to experience it and look at the issues it deals with through the characters’ (and author’s) eyes. It did give me a lot to think about and wrestle with, which is sometimes the best thing a book can give you.

Torchwood: Pack Animals

A really fun read, more so than I had ever expected! If you like Torchwood and want more stories about the team before everything goes to shit, this is perfect for that. It includes the entire cast, an interest mystery to be unravelled, lots of slavering monsters, Rhys being really wonderful and sweet (which I didn’t know I wanted until I read this book), and all the humour I expect from Torchwood. I had to send a lot of quotes to my long-suffering girlfriend who a) does not watch this show but b) needs to tolerate it because I find it too funny to keep to myself. It was good enough to make me go out another book of the series since this was the only one my library carried.

[yellowocaballero]

Do u have any tips on writing tension and payoff, or writing in general? I look up to your writing greatly and any advice u give would be very much appreciated

Ahh haha that’s plotting stuff which I am very obviously not amazing at (exhibit A: Solitaire, holy shit what a mess). A far better person to ask would be @lazuliquetzal, who is stellar at this (mostly through watching RL Stein masterclasses). Also @coolcurrybooks who herself taught me a lot about plot structure. Also I’ll preface this by saying “I don’t know anything about plotting or writing and I’ve taken like one boring class and I’ve never read any books on this and I don’t know what I’m talking about”, and pretend I say that a hundred times. I only know this from reading books. 

I suck at plotting so much that I try to keep it really simple. But thanks for asking about tension, because so many fanfics just deadass do not have it and it drives me bonkers fucking yonkers. Stories need conflict. Do not write a story without conflict, good god. The conflict can be ‘who gets the last piece of pie’, it doesn’t matter, but it should happen and it should be further than just a miscommunication. Characters need flaws - actual, legitimate, ‘oof’ flaws. Not just emotional character conflict, although that’s important too (characters should change as people over the course of the story, or at the very least the reader should find out more about them). Physical conflict. Stakes. The physical conflict and, and probably should, be a metaphor for the emotional conflict, but you should have both. 

A character wants something. There are barriers to getting that thing. They want that thing for psychological reasons. Oh, man, will character get that thing?! Time will tell! 

That’s tension. Tension is necessary for a ‘bingeable’ story. Someone stays up until 3am reading your fic? It had tension. For me tension means that the story is constantly escalating. I think of it in terms of momentum - the train gets going and picks up steam, and at the climax it crashes into a wall. Things are always getting worse. There is a ‘lowest point’ in the story where all seems lost and the characters and reader feel as if all is lost. Then the characters pick themselves up again, you get the cathartic and satisfying climax, and then the story wraps up. Introduce the story, introduce the characters and dynamics, world-build, hit them with that conflict, escalate, lowest point, climax, falling action. It’s really simple but so long as the basic structure is there it works. For me personally...writing is boring, it’s boring when you’ve been doing it for eight hours, so every time I get bored during writing I make something stupid happen. It’s not very scientific.

Payoff is just the release of that tension. It’s your character going the entire story convinced they’re unloved only to realize that their friends loved them all along. If you’re me, it’s the dramatic monologue about their feelings and the realization that everything they needed was within them. If you introduced a problem, solve it. If you introduced a character thread, do your best to wrap it up. If you’ve been spending the entire story on the edge of your seat just WAITING for that smarmy villain bastard to get what’s coming to him, when he does it’s very satisfying.

Also good tension/payoff is twists, which are important for thrillers. Twists aren’t appropriate for every story, but good ones can give a lot of zest. Good payoff is knowing that the characters have changed, grown, and learned. You’re proud of them!

This is specific advice to fanfiction and also just me bitching about something that’s just personally not to my taste: I get that it’s really fun to just kinda keep writing something so long as it’s fun. But when beginning to write a fic, it really helps a lot to have that ending in mind. I almost never know what’s going on in the middle of a story lol, but I normally know where they’re going to end up. And if you’re just like...writing and writing and writing, then all sense of momentum and tension and payoff is lost. I hate my stories most when I feel like it’s bloated and meandering. Every scene should have one, two, three, four purposes. Every conversation needs meaning. 

Critically ask yourself why you’re writing this, why that is happening. What does this conversation say about A, how would B be his own worst enemy here? Who’s your audience? What’s your genre? Have you read books/watched movies in your genre? Go read your genre. What does your genre do, how does it manufacture tension, what are the character dynamics in your genre? I decide my genre, I imbibe my genre until I’ve memorized the plot structure of my genre, then I replicate it. If you’re me, at this point you hit the genre with a hammer.  

Does that help? I don’t know if that helped. Fanfic writing is its own...unique thing, that is written in a strange way. Some of that way is great and some of it is not great. I cannot emphasize enough that I figured out how to plot my bad 90s romcom battle of the sexes/problematic bet fic by watching three movies in that genre and then ripping them apart with my teeth like an angry dog. 

TL;DR: Read a lot, write a lot, know what you’re writing, know where you’re going, and have fun getting there!

[queerbutstillhere]

Jason had thought he had known pain, back when he was living on the street. He thought he knew pain, working with Bruce, sparing nearly nightly, fighting criminals and goons and stopping petty crime. But he had been so wrong. He didn’t know pain. He didn’t know pain until he was forced to watch Dick and Wally interact for nearly a week straight.

Here’s what had happened. Dick had been injured, broke his foot, got put on bedrest for a week, so says Alfred. Except bedrest for a Bat means just staying in the manor, but they still can go wherever the hell they please.

And since Dick was all laid up, Wally West, his “best friend” decided to come and keep his company and wait on him hand and foot. It drove Jason insane. They would just lay around on the sofa, or in Dick’s room, playing video games and chatting or whatever, and it was so painfully obvious how in love with each other they were, but so closeted and it was so annoying. Just get over your gay pining stage and kiss already, numbskulls!

An example of this. They were laying on the sofa, Dick’s head in Wally’s lap, foot up on the arm rest as they watched a movie, Cast Away, actually. Jason was in the armchair, trying to study. He had a lot of catching up to do with his classes. Dick randomly just sighed heavily and looked up at Wally.

“Why won’t babs date me?”

“I don’t know man, You’re amazing, anyone would be lucky to have you.”

Jason looked up, mouth falling open. Dick blushed and looked back to the tv.

“Thanks bro.”

“Are you fuc-”

The two “Friends” looked over at him, confused.

“What?”

“She won’t date you cuz she aint fucking blind!”

Dick’s eyebrows furrowed together.

“What does that mean?”

“If she isn’t dating him then she is blind???” Wally asked, clearly confused.

“Oh my god I fucking can’t-” Jason snapped, jumping up and grabbing his book and speed walking out.

It just drove him absolutely bonkers, watching those two dance around each other and never do anything. And like, he gets it, they’re not out, to anyone, that he knows of anyway. But seriously, it was so painfully obvious that they were in love with each other. Everyone could see with how they looked at each other, those sappy gazes and the soft, encouraging speeches. He wanted to throw up whenever he was left in a room with them.

It got so bad that he just at this stage, didn’t even pretend to not be joking about them anymore, they’d do anything and he’d just mutter out a tease like “Gross” or something and then move on. Neither one seemed to realize what he was talking about. Which was annoying, but not the end of the world. Hell even Bruce seemed to notice it, and if Bruce notices something like this, you know it’s obvious. Not to say he’s bad with emotions, but. . . . Well he is.

Now, spoiler alert, if you didn’t know.

Jason died.

Yup, poor kid went boom in a warehouse after being beaten by a crazed clown with a crowbar.

He was dead for a while, and then boom he wasn’t anymore. The Al Ghul’s decided to pop him in a lazarus pit and he was just alive again, albeit very fucked up. LIke, murderous rages about every time he inhaled, fucked up. It took him a while, and I mean a while, to finally make it back to Gotham, and even longer to decide he didn’t need to murder Bruce or any of his brothers anymore. By the time he even started feeling accepted in the family, it had been several years since his return.

Now imagine his fucking suprise and rage when he walked into the batcave one day to borrow Bruce’s forensics equipment and found Dick sitting in Wally’s lap.

He slammed on the breaks and just stared at them for a moment. They were laughing about something, and then Dick leaned in and gently kissed Wally.

“Are you FUCKING KIDDING ME!” Jason all but screamed.

Dick fell backwards off of Wally, who nearly shot up, eyes wide.

“Holy Shit, Jason!” Dick screamed back, hand on his chest as he laid on the floor.

“It’s been like EIGHT YEARS.”

“What??” Wally asked, staring at him like a shocked deer or something.

“I FUCKING MISSED IT!?!?!?!”

“MISSED WHAT?”

“You two!!!!”

They stared at him, Dick sitting up and leaning against Wally’s knee.

“Wait, What the hell does that mean!?”

“It means that the whole time I was Robin, I had to watch you two assholes flirting and pining and being gay!!!”

“What!?”

“Oh my god you two were so oblivious, I wanted to drive a rock through my skull!!”

“Oh my god, I can’t believe you!”

“I’m the one who had to watch you two and you can’t believe me?!? God, fucking finally!”

Jason was torn between being so glad they finally got out of the closet and asked each other out, and being pissed that he hadn’t been there to see it and laugh in their faces the whole time. Dick just stared at him, mortified. Wally was starting to look amused.

“I’m so done, I can’t even with you two,” Jason grumbled, spinning on his heel and stalking away to the lab equipment.

“Jason Peter Todd, get back here!”

“Fuck off, Dick!” Jason yelled back, not stopping.

He can’t believe they got together and he fucking missed it.

For @hyperactive-lectiophile ! I hope this is satisfactory!!! <3

[silksinging]

Soli Watches Rwby V7 E7

 (blacklist “soli watches” if you dont want these on your dash <3)

I made a post in which i said no rwby op has truly slapped since volume 3.  And I stand by that.  I’ll admit I at least know the melody of volume 4′s but like.  I’ve been watching the op every time and i still couldn’t sing along to op 7 if I tried

That said I do like that bit where they phase through their different outfits.  Nice callback

but hey penny’s there, I cant complain

oh and this bit is cool too

oh right, i forgot we were starting on a down note lol

*pat pat* it’s okay, you’re still gonna get more development than some of the main characters this season

OH SHIT WELL HERE’S A USEFUL SEMBLANCE

cool take on the usual invisibility power

OH AND HERE’S ANOTHER COOL ONE dont know what it does but ALRIGHT

oh also i love robyn and im gay

god all the politics stuff is making me nervous...  First Weiss’s terrible dad gets elected, and now we’re gonna declare martial law??  Why can’t we just tell people we’re trying to re-establish communication again???  Wouldn’t that be?  yknow?  good communication???  im sure there’s a reason and i just forgot but anyway

Nora said FUCK the bourgeoisie

aaaaaaaaaaaaand Ironwood is going full authoritarian now.  Great!  Awesome!

FFFFFFFFUCK OH NO REN AGREED AND LOOK AT NORA’S BETRAYAL

oh that’s right Blake and Yang were on a DATE

And we didnt get to see it........  F....

the contrast between the good communication here and renora in the last scene is giving me emotions

i dont know what kind

but i sure have them

OH DON’T LIKE THAT!!!!!  leave the good grampa alone

i was gonna go on a whole rant about accuracy but no, we’re good it’s fine

when they talked about hacking at Vytal they meant the Atlas bots and not Penny

But hey good on them for figuring out there’s hacking going on

Here’s a rant i CAN go on tho

I Hate Weiss’s new hair

It doesnt look too bad on it’s own like this, but it is So bizarrely smooth compared to everyone else’s...  like there`s a lot less of those dark definition lines and faces on it compared to say, Jaune’s or Yang’s...  The braid isnt a bad idea but the way they made it doesnt make sense...  why is it so big...  It’s like triple the size her ponytail was...  also it looks weird from the back...  You can kinda see what i mean in the next pic... but yeah the main thing is it doesnt seem to follow the same style as every other character, and it’s driving me bonkers

anyway,

HELL YEAH PENNY BACKSTORY TIME??

oh FUCK

THAT’S WHY HE’S SICK?? 

HE’S BEEN GIVING PARTS OF HIS SOUL TO HIS ROBODAUGHTER???

MMMMMMMMM

Meanwhile in another part of town,

God I love Robyn’s voice it’s so good

FJKDLSAJFKLDSAJFKDSL fisticuffs

OH LIE DETECTION POWERS that’s handy

Meanwhile, in another part of the city,

props to Oscar for standing up to an authority figure like that holy Shit

oh fuck this can’t be good

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand it wasn’t!!!  Cool!!!!

Tune in next time for a tense dinner with evil dad I guess!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[luobingmeis]

okay just gonna be very honest here, mad spoilers for amnesty episode 29 under the cut bc i’m basically gonna be documenting the emotional turmoil me and my best friend just went through

[us, getting breakfast before listening]

me: so, yeah, the description of this episode was something like “one final lunar interlude. our heroes reflect on what got them to this point before their final standoff.”

him: oh my god it’s just going to be a recap

me: i thought it was going to be flashbacks? except, like, from their past before amnesty?

[us, starting the episode]

griffin: so yeah you’re gonna hear some old clips-

my friend: told you! it’s a recap episode!

[the episode beginning]

us: who tf is this man

me: holy shit they’re skipping months

mama doesn’t know where the sylphs are??? amnesty lodge is closed????? it’s months later?????

our current attitude: ?? kinda skeptical but we’ll go with it

[duck’s section]

hey!! sarah drake!!

we lost it laughing at minerva’s “i’m going to eat a pizza and watch the voice”

it sounds like kepler is closed off from the public? like, with the extraterrestial stuff and the mountain collapsing, it sounds like kepler is guarded off like in apocalyptic movies so that no one can get in or leave? and that’s, how do u say, very concerning!!!

like, it seems like A Lot of fbi agents are coming into kepler which, like, makes sense, but still

my friend: listening to this is kinda confusing

me: yeah it’s almost like the same person is playing seven different characters at once

[ad break]

me: ngl i’m kinda nervous but also i think this is how everyone who listened to balance as it was happening felt when stolen century started so... i trust griffin, but i’m nervous

my friend: oh yeah griffin is going to make this all work out

also my friend: also mama is being kept in captivity bc she doesn’t know where the sylphs are but duck does because of the spring-thing

me: holy shit

also it sounds like amnesty lodge is either closed bc a) the sylphs are gone, b) it was raided, or c) it was destroyed by the fucking mountain falling into town

honestly it sounds like kepler in general is in shambles

[mama’s section part 2]

basically the one thing that has been sticking out to me is the light creature stuff. like, even when we first saw them back in the water arc, it always stuck out to me that they all seemed Incredibly At Peace

honestly thank god for this section because i forgot so much about thacker, especially how fucking creepy that scene was with him and aubrey in the basement

[aubrey’s scene]

hey!! the hornets!!!

i love how aubrey and the hornets are working together, tho it seems rather begrudgingly

me and my friend settled on that it seems like they’re... preparing for something? a fight, obviously, but against what, or who?

aubrey is preparing some Big Magic

also the music playing behind aubrey trying to cast A Spell was so fucking good

also thank god for those flashbacks bc a) they fit so well and b) i forgot so much

and i’m so glad they finally came back to the interpreter, i was wondering what was gonna happen w/ her

tho, tbh, me and my best friend had this moment of utter understanding

it was during the flashback when janelle was telling aubrey about sylvain and how she disappeared and no one knows where she went

and i just turned to my friend and said, “i think aubrey is actually sylvain”

and my best friend said, “i was about to say the same fucking thing, aubrey isn’t a sylph because she is literally sylvain”

so that’s the theory we have

also me and my friend: where! is! dani!

bc obvi i will never stop worrying abt dani

[that fucking final scene]

okay

okay

o k a y

throughout this entire episode, i was thinking to myself, “god, i’m kinda nervous for ned’s section. it’s probably going to be a funeral, right? like, it’s gonna be sad, yeah?”

but then, i started thinking to myself, “hey... this episode is only, like, an hour and fifteen minutes... and mama’s already had two sections, and duck had his, and aubrey is having her section, and it’s long, so, like... are they gonna skip ned?”

and then

and then

we hear clint gasping for breath

and the amnesty theme starts

and me and my best friend kinda side eye each other

bc, listen, i love ned so much and would love more of him, but i kinda didn’t want him to come back bc his death was so impactful that it would’ve kinda... ruined the moment?

and then we hear, “aubrey! you did it!”

and then

we hear

“welcome back, thacker”

and we

fucking

lose

our 

minds

we both gasp and throw our hands over my mouth (im still driving tho so one-handed)

and we’re both just speechless

and we’re just staring at my radio as the ending music plays

and i start absolutely fucking losing it, “holy shit! clint is fucking thacker now! holy fucking shit! oh my god!” except like take that x1000

and i’m screaming and me and my best friend are just staring at each other and, finally, he says, “griffin mcelroy is a fucking genius”

and we replay the moment bc we Cannot Fucking Believe That Just Happened

and, oh my god, it was fucking wild, bc we were still driving down by the beaches and absolutely freaking out and my friend is like, “it was so perfectly set up! griffin is a fucking genius! thacker is a character with no established personality or backstory! it’s fucking perfect!”

and i was telling him abt all the theories that had been going around and just

holy shit

it was definitely one of those “you had to be there in my car to truly see what was going on” moments bc me and my best friend were absolutely losing our minds and, ngl, if you can, find a friend to enjoy stuff with! bc i listen to amnesty w/ my best friend and, as someone who already loves amnesty and has a lot of fun listening to it, it makes it so much more fun!!

and, like, we had been saying that entire episode, “something is gonna happen with thacker, something’s gonna happen”

and, well, something happened with thacker

like, okay, we all kinda assumed clint would still be There, but i was thinking it was gonna be ned flashbacks or something

but clint coming back to play thacker??? that is officially one of the best the adventure zone moments ever like that part needs to be cemented in adventure zone history

we are also waiting for when shit goes down with fucking dr. harris bonkers phd bc he was mentioned A Good Amount Of Times

now, we’re just wondering how the next couple episodes are gonna take place

griffin said that, in two weeks, the final arc will begin. does he mean the finale, or does he mean an actual arc before the finale?

anyways, i’m so fucking hyped, and amnesty is so fucking good, and i knew i was right in not paying attention to other people saying “oh amnesty won’t have moments like what balance had” bc i knew that the end arcs of amnesty were going to pack a fucking punch

so, yeah, moral of my ted talk, amnesty is really fucking great!!!!

“griffin said gay rights when he brought thacker back” “gay and trans rights”

[terriblelifechoices]

My thoughts on Crimes of Grindelwald have not yet hit any level of coherence, so I’m just going to do the drive-by shouty thing and leave them here.  Under the cut, because spoilers.

Warnings: spoilers.  Also unfiltered!Ri.

Things I Loved:

Pretty much all of the characters.  The cast is wonderfully talented, and I feel like they did a lot with what they had to work with.

IDK if this was a good thing or not.  I mean, as a fannish person I have been pretty much conditioned to love media where the cast makes the best of admittedly less than stellar writing, simply because I love the characters.  (See: Stargate Atlantis.  Also, Merlin.)

Newt and Jacob, eternal cinnamon roll squad.  Honestly, if the next three movies were just the two of them hanging out and being adorable cinnamon roll bros, I would basically be that gif from Futurama:

Newt and Theseus.  I just.  I love complicated sibling relationships, okay?  I really do.   I loved that it’s obvious that Theseus really does love his brother.  But he also very obviously doesn’t understand him.  That scene at the Ministry reads a lot like a neurotypical older sibling with a neurodivergent younger one; Theseus clearly thinks that everything would be so much easier if Newt were just a little bit less Newt, and doesn’t really get that Newt can’t.

Newt and Tina.  Oh my god, Newt and Tina.  Tina read Newt’s book.  I mean, I was totally with Jacob on team “don’t say that” when the salamander eyes thing came up.  And then it turned into this lovely way to demonstrate that Tina cares about Newt without beating people over the head.  Also, fire in dark water?  Damn, Newt.  A+ romance, go you.

Pretty much anything with Leta.  Holy shit, Zoe Kravitz knocked it out of the park.

Things That Drove Me Bonkers

Pretty much anything to do with the timeline.  I do not have anything new to say here that the rest of fandom hasn’t already said, so I’m just going to leave it at that and move on.

That fucking Tycho Dodonus prophecy.  Can we all agree that prophecy is a terrible narrative device?  Also, you did that one already, JKR.  Maybe try something new.

Literally nothing about Credence’s backstory -- imagined or otherwise -- made a lick of sense.  Do I buy Lestrange senior sending his infant son out of the country to keep him safe?  Sure.  Do I buy Lestrange senior sending his infant son out of the country to Mary Lou Barebone specifically without having some assurances that his heir would be returned to him unabused?  NOT SO MUCH.

Also, if he’s going to leave his heir in someone else’s care, why not leave Leta, too?  Lestrange senior clearly didn’t want her, being an aristocratic prick with no use for women outside of being how you get babies (preferably male).  It would’ve made a lot more sense to leave both his kids with Mary Lou.

What the fuck was up with Queenie.

Nagini.  I feel like they basically shoe-horned Nagini into the plot as a tie-in to the Harry Potter franchise, and then drastically underused the character.  Claudia Kim is a wonderful actress, and I think she could’ve done a lot more than just have Nagini function as Credence’s emotional support snake lady.

A Dumbledore?  Seriously?  

Mostly, I think that Crimes of Grindelwald was like watching the live action version of someone’s NaNoWriMo novel, where the author’s hit that panicked stage and basically goes, “well, it’s the word count that matters, I’ll go back and edit in plot and pacing later.”  And then no one did any editing.

Honestly, I think the whole thing would have driven me a lot less crazy if the bones of the story weren’t quite so good.  Because man, that movie could have been great.

[bynkii]

Why is a man running an educational business advocating for ignorance?

(This was originally published on 30 Nov. 2015 in response to this: https://medium.com/the-mission/why-knowing-stuff-doesn-t-really-matter-f06a5536ab59) I don’t often read things on Medium that makes me think “Are you high?” but “Why Knowing Stuff Doesn’t Really Matter” made me literally think that Isaac Morehouse was tripping balls when he wrote it. Because I cannot, I simply can. not. imagine why someone who in theory, makes money from teaching people stuff, aka “knowing stuff” would publish this…paen to deliberate, methodical stupidity.

The idea that somehow, there is knowledge that is “good” and knowledge that is “bad” is almost ludicrous. Wait, no almost. It’s ludicrous. It’s the kind of thinking that in a cynical vein, is what your classic late-Victorian/early 20th Century factory or mine owner would use on their workers. “You only need to know how to run a milling machine.” “You’re a miner. All you need to know is how to swing your pick where I tell you to swing it.” It’s a phenomenally limiting philosophy, especially coming from someone ostensibly in the education business.

But then I read the Praxis site, and it starts to make sense. Isaac isn’t about education, Isaac is about training and when you want people to value training over education, knowledge for its own sake is indeed a bad thing. I still think he’s completely bonkers, but I understand how his self-interest is at play here. Which makes me even more sad. I’d have preferred his paen to ignorance was the result of too many tabs and not manipulative cynicism designed to bag on “useless” education. Which is what that post is.

However, here’s the thing: training shows you how, and what. Education is where you learn why, and why is in the end, way more important. It’s also more vague, and cannot be neatly compartmentalized into a series of 8-week courses and meetings with startup CEOs. “Why”, is learning “useless” stuff with no immediate value, that won’t help you code better or suck VC privates better.

It’s stuff like learning at 6 that all doors on the outside open out, and then finding out why. Or how to penny a door. Or drive a stick shift. It’s learning that you never need ice for soda from a dispenser to make it cold because the very design of the thing means it’s always cold. Something to do with the syrup in the hoses going to shit if it gets warm as I recall. What was the real-world value in that? Not a goddamned thing. But knowing why I didn’t need ice made me more interested in how soda fountains work, especially since I worked with the goddamned things. As it turns out, the more you know a thing, the fewer problems you have with it.

As it also turns out, knowing why, and the digging that “why” leads you to helps you see beyond the thin veneer of bullshit that people such as Morehouse portray as some kind of fucking wisdom.

Morehouse has a seriously fucked-up thesis in that post: that there is “good” or immediately useful knowledge, and “bad” or not immediately useful knowledge. That thesis is what I would call “shit” or shit.

When I joined the Air Force, I spent, post-basic training, (did you know that if you’re really stressed out, it’s perfectly normal to go weeks without taking a shit? Yeah. If it ever happens, don’t freak out about it. Try dropping your stress levels) at Keesler AFB. For 9.5 months or so, the USAF taught me a lot of electronics and RF. Tubes, transistors, ICs, tracing circuits, reading wiring diagrams, RF theory, how electronic countermeasures really work, (no video game or movie has ever gotten this right, by the way) most of which was of no immediate use on B-1B bombers, which would be the only weapons system I worked on.

(Did you know the value in being able to make awesome piña coladas from scratch? It got me free hotel rooms on weekends during tech school on a regular basis. So, about…oh $300 a month in 1987 money. Amazing what skill with a blender, some time spent working in a Mexican restaurant, and conversations with the hotel owners can get you.)

Being able to strip, test, and reassemble an ALT-32 had no value in the B-1B world, for the -32 was a B-52 system and an old one in 1987. Nor did I ever have to calculate RF loss, I had test sets that did it for me. But you know where that shit was useful? About two weeks after the introduction of the original iBook. Man, as it turns out, having a solid grounding in high frequency RF that I didn’t use between 1993 and 1999 made it really easy to correctly implement a WiFi network.

Not only that, I knew why the base stations had to be placed in certain areas. I also knew what spread-spectrum really was, and the effect it had on signal, along with why antenna polarization matters, frequency is important, and all the rest.

None of that detail was needed for B-1B DAS (Defensive Avionics Systems, what ECM on a B-1B is called.) The plane and the test sets took care of that shit for us. But because I knew the why, the how and the what got easier, including hows and whats I had no goddamned clue about in 1987–88 when I was really learning this shit.

Had I followed Isaac’s advice, I would have actively worked to forget all of it upon leaving the Air Force, since I was an IT tech in a small city government and had no need for any of that knowledge.

For that matter, why was it important I know about things outside of my AFSC, like why a B-1B needs SMCS Vanes, (the “winglets” on the front of the fuselage) or how the FCGMS (Fuel Center-Of-Gravity Management System) works. Or how “Cooling Oil” became “Coolanol”.

Because knowlege. All knowledge. Is good. The current idiocy that partitions knowledge into “good” and “bad” or “immediately useful” vs. “not immediately useful” is just that: idiocy. Did I know as a kid that playing football and baseball would help me have an intuitive understanding of certain aspects of physics? No.

Did I think that years spent standing under a plane with my hands over my head dealing with the unholy rat’s nest that is coax cable connections in a B-1B wing glove would be holy shit awesome training for connecting networking or even HDMI cable when you had to do it blind with almost no room for your hand to work in? Nope. Didn’t even know what ethernet was, and HDMI didn’t exist.

Did I realize how continuously useful a random elective in high school in architectural drafting would be throughout my life? Don’t be stupid, I just liked drawing houses. But ye gods, being able to read basic blueprints and the like? How is that not useful? The months poor TSgt. Frasier spent pounding how to read circuit diagrams into my head has paid off over and over, even though I didn’t do it that much even in the Air Force.

Immersing myself in how things work on a large, complicated aircraft taught me all kinds of things. Like why aircraft toilets are so expensive. And that large systems, like networks, are closer to biological systems than vaguely interconnected nodes. Of course, the biology classes I took helped with that even more. How often in my professional life has biology been directly applicable?

Never.

How often have the concepts behind that biology helped me grok really complicated networks or computer I/O? Countless times.

Knowledge, in a very real way, is life. You are, literally, what you know. The things you learn all work together. The very idea that you don’t want to “waste time with things you don’t need to know” is…well, it’s fucking stupid is what it is. Why would you actively work to limit yourself?

I cannot imagine what it’s like to go through life being deliberately ignorant of “useless” things. Because I’ve never really, outside of generic griping, found knowledge that ended up being truly useless. Maybe…maybe five minutes before I die, I could tell you if there is such a thing. But until then, fuckit, I’m going to learn ALL THE THINGS.

You should too.

[thegeminisage]

i’m going to play this until sunrise probably so best just get used to this

altho from now on im keeping them under a cut bc they get long and possibly spoilers you’re welcome lol

i didnt say so before but i actually recognize a lot of these bird calls like theyre from Real Birds i think

HOLY FUCK a camo’d lizalfos

omg the goats charge at you?? lmao nice tp throwback :’))))

i wonder if you get a bugnet later...bugs are everywhere and the fireflies are so pretty

wtf i saw a fairy!!!! like a real health recovering fairy and i couldn’t catch it ;_;

i didn’t read it when it told me how to turn this sensor thing off and its driving me bonkers :|

omg some lizalfos jumped out of the river at me and attacked but before i could finish them off a person scared the last one away!!! omg i love People

i wish i had been able to kill it tho lol

omg GAMEPAD IM SORRY I DONT REMEMBER HOW TO CHARGE YOU

i cant believe this i have had to stop playing to root around and see if i have a cord that plugs into this stupid thing

i looked at EVERY cord behind my tv, of which there are many, but did not find the one i need to charge the thing. so im fucked i guess lol bc im not gonna stop playing, like, ever?

at least it charged some while i was lookin around

maybe i’ll liveblog more so i can set it on the stand while typing >:3

oh my god okay yes i know there’s a shrine nearby yes i understand Please Stop

I GOT A BOOMERANG OMG O M G

i see horses over there!!! after i climb this tall thing i will check them out

wtf my brother texted me back abt the cord what is he doing up at this hour

ok that was the best thing that ever happened to me cutting this off here so i can make a photo post