#but in the interests of organization

[bookshelf-in-progress]

Purity of Mind: A Bluebeard Retelling

Dora looked so innocent, asleep on her bed. The fresh white bandages binding her crown looked more like a mark of holiness than disaster. The doctor claimed she'd fallen from a balcony and hit her head upon a stair rail. Adam thought it seemed too suspicious an accident. A disaster on the one day he'd left the house? His sure-footed little wife wouldn't have stumbled like that--not unless she were nearly out of her wits. Perhaps fleeing from some great terror.

"She'll wake soon," the doctor assured him. "Her body's healed enough, but with a head injury like that, there's no telling what state her brain will be in."

The state itself, Adam thought, would be telling enough.

As if roused by the doctor's words, Dora's eyelids fluttered. She sat up, pale and trembling. Her gaze landed upon Adam, and she started to scream.

"Who are you?" she shrieked, gathering the bedclothes to cover herself. "What are you doing in my room?"

Adam had steeled himself for the usual accusations, but this left him off-balance.

Finally, he managed to say, "Dora, it's just me. Adam. Your husband."

"I have no husband!"

"We wed six months ago."

"Liar!" she shrieked. "I'd never marry a man with such an awful beard!"

Adam stroked his blue-black whiskers, neatly trimmed for his homecoming. A deep chuckle rumbled in his throat; after months of her tiptoeing around him, her frankness was amusing. "I paid your parents richly for the privilege."

Dora paused at that. The mercenary child of mercenary parents--the tale would ring true, no matter her objections to his facial hair. Yet the bewilderment didn't fade from her face. "I've never seen this house before."

"You've been mistress here six months."

"I don't believe you."

"Whether you believe me or not, it's true. You fell from a staircase and hit your head."

Her eyes were fire. "I'll bet you pushed me!"

"I was away from home. I only just returned." He would never have opted for such an impersonal death. It was much more satisfying to feel the life draining away beneath his fingers.

The thought brought him back to reality. No need to wrestle with her delusions; only one truth mattered.

"Dora," Adam asked. "Where are the keys?"

"What keys?"

"I left the keys of the house in your keeping. I'll need them returned."

"I never had any keys!"

Adam looked to the doctor, who said, "We've found no keys on her person."

Missing? Impossible. Adam stormed from the room and set the servants searching for the keys. Nothing in her wardrobe. Nothing in the rooms. Nothing in the gardens.

The door on the third floor was locked, with no signs of entry.

Adam returned to the sickroom as the sun was setting. Dora sat quietly on her bed, having been calmly convinced of her new reality, completely unaware of the turmoil she'd thrown his life into.

He could have torn her limb from limb right there, but he had no proof yet she was deserving of it. For the moment, his strategy was gentleness.

He sat on the bed beside her. "Dora, my dove, think. Can you remember where the keys might be?"

"I can't even remember you."

Adam examined her in every detail--the tips of her fingers, the whites of her eyes, the curl of her lips. No signs of deception.

"You truly can't remember anything?"

Tears glittered in her eyes as she shook her head.

She looked as innocent as a newborn babe. The timid little fool he'd married couldn't fake such total ignorance. If she'd peered behind the door, she'd lost the memory of what she'd seen. If she'd disobeyed, he had no way of knowing.

A new twist to the game--a second chance.

Adam left the room in a state of contentment. He could get new keys made. His secret was safe--locked away either behind the door or in his wife's blank mind.

And if her memory returned? If she had memories of that bloody chamber?

He could always kill her later.

[froody]

The Italian restaurant in my mom’s hometown WAS definitely a mob front. The owner briefly served in the Italian military, immigrated to America in his twenties back in the early 70s, mysteriously had enough money to open a chain of Italian restaurants and was convicted for trafficking cocaine across the Virginia/West Virginia area and spent 15 years in prison.

My mom had worked as a waitress at the place while she was a teenager and throughout her 20s and she realized that when she was sent to the restaurant’s sister location in West Virginia in a mysteriously packed car by her mysteriously nice boss, it probably wasn’t pizza ingredients she was hauling. It was the 80s. She was a tiny, very naive, conventionally attractive church girl with no criminal record so she was the perfect unwitting drug mule.

The thing was, this restaurant and the man who operated it were locally loved. Beyond large scale organized cocaine trafficking, food was his other passion. Everyone waited anxiously for him to get out of prison and when he did this guy started a crusade against the corrupt local sheriff’s office. He started doing anti-police brutality advocacy work WHOLEHEARTEDLY. Donating to local families who had been victims and participating in local drives and awareness campaigns.

Made men usually do local charity work but the balls on this guy to take up sword and spear against shitty corrupt ineffectual law enforcement. Incredible. One thing about Appalachians is that we hate the cops and we love social agitators. This guy lived a long eventful life and died recently of natural causes and the overwhelming outpouring of love for him on Facebook was incredible, a uniting force that the town had not seen in decades, everybody was sharing their favorite stories about him and I’m sure local law enforcement was fuming.

[frodo-a-gogo]

Let us be brutally honest with ourselves and with eachother for a moment. If he weren't obese you motherfuckers would be capable of percieving evrart claires sexy sexy moral ambiguity and complex charms

[nacch-an]

The medicine seller's street food journey

[chiropteracupola]

c. 1540 CE: a young man from Chalco, and his dragon.

[amethystroselily]

Actually it’s so so so funny that when Andrew’s introduced it feels like he’s going to be the bad boy love interest that turns the main character’s life upside down and gets him involved in something dark and mysterious, but then (it literally just occurred to me) that’s NEIL actually, and Andrew is literally just some guy with serious childhood trauma.

[the-magpie-collective]

Wyll seems to be the only companion who intentionally and repeatedly uses the mindflayer tadpole to communicate. I did a quick search through the dialogue files and the only other instance I found was at the beginning of Act I, when Lae'zel is captured by the tieflings, she'll use the tadpole to demand you free her.

And yet, Wyll is one of the companions most against using the tadpole's powers. Arguably, I'd say he's more against it than anyone save for Lae'zel. Which is why I find it so interesting that out of all of companions, Wyll is the one to latch onto and make use of this facet of the tadpole's powers.

The first time Wyll can use the tadpole is when Mizora bids him to rescue Zariel's asset. If the Player succeeds on their perception check, they can bargain with Mizora to free Wyll from his pact. Wyll link his mind with the Player's Character in panic, demanding to know "What are you doing?"

Then again when Wyll is finally reunited with his father, he uses the tadpole to show his father why he pacted with Mizora. Instead of explaining in his own words, he shows him the cultists as they attempt to summon Tiamat into Baldur's Gate. He'll do the same for the Player Character if his father isn't saved, even when he is freed from his pact and could say it in his own words. If the PC refuses to let Wyll show them, he will explain it, but clearly prefers to use the tadpole.

Finally, Wyll will also use the tadpole to bid farewell if he has a falling out with the player character, telling the player "Godspeed, and may your journey be true."

For Wyll, who had spent the last seven years under a devil's thumb, this narrative choice to use the tadpoles to communicate is telling. One thing all of these scenes have in common is that they all emotionally charged moments. They are also moments in which, in my opinion, it is very important for Wyll to convey his sincerity. Wyll has spent the last seven years always dancing around the truth and now here comes along a power where not only can he tell the truth, he can show the truth as he sees it, so that there is much less risk of being misunderstood. A power like that has to be irresistible.

Just another thing I wish was explored more in depth in game.

Edit: Thank you to everyone who pointed out instances when other characters also use the tadpoles to communicate <3

Turns out Wyll/Lae'zel's writer is the only one who bothered to use proper tagging in the dialogue system ('MINDMELD' if you're curious). This is why I can never find what I'm looking for in the dialogue files smh

[canisalbus]

My auntie keeps Golden Guernsey goats on our island, like many of our local unique breeds of livestock they nearly went extinct in the starving during ww2 occupation surviving by only one smuggled flock. They're super friendly and energetic and their colouration might be of interest :eyes:

Oh OH these are very pretty

[jadedazemations]

Metalphiles doodles

I’m glad you guys liked the pairing. I’m not necessarily shipping them as much as I am shoving them into vulnerable situations to see what happens. Like I put them in a jar and shake them violently bc I love them sm.

[mecachrome]

not sure whether excerpts from oscar's book have alr been posted here but i found some of the quotes from the author's exclusive interviews with j.sera & rené quite interesting and thought i'd gather them in one place ❓__❓

i always love hearing insights on his karting days and how his unique rc bg & transition from australian to european karting shaped his racecraft... also notable that Every Single person who ever speaks about oscar is just like "well more than anything... he was SMART" 😭 obsessed with baby oscar already learning to dispense his energy in understated / calculative / strategic ways... more below the cut:

another thing i find quite interesting is how because oscar started karting in a relatively smaller scene that wasn't quite as competitive or talent-heavy as in europe, he was always too young/small for the classes he competed in (as with rc racing). of course he was never quite as egregiously undersized as lando but it's kind of fun that they have very similar karting lore in that aspect. not from the book but self-provided visuals:

also love how much the seras talk about his style, from his smooth inputs and clean driving to how much open-wheel potential he exhibited from the very beginning T__T

as for rené's insights on oscar's time at prema, i also find them interesting because while they corroborate a lot of surface level details about his junior campaigns that we're alr familiar with it's cool to be reminded of his growth from f3 (zero front row starts, winning more off consistency and competitor error than any personal dominant performance) to putting it all together in the second half of f2 (consecutive run of poles/fr wins to end the season).

also interesting to hear that THE most angry rené ever saw him was after his f3 monza penalty, because oscar's demeanor & reactions to adversity get discussed a lot and while he's always been very level-headed and i'd argue his core personality has not changed much if at all over the past 5 years, you can still see how he was just that touch less filtered and more defensive during his junior days. oscar is definitely still someone who refuses to take blame if he knows he wasn't at fault and who will never give credit to others when the work was mostly done by him ("i was the one driving" re: mweb helping him) but there has been a fairly noticeable growth curve from the guy who said he felt Physically Weak at the fr finale because of how nervous he was, who said he was grateful to be in school because it distracted him from his "habit of overthinking" that he was trying to get rid of, who complained extensively at monza about the novalak / beckmann incidents and then said "seems to be quite a common theme with liam if i'm honest 😐" re: continued contact in the press conf, to the guy today who reacts to deleted laps with a dry 👍 and stealthily downplays racing incidents to the point of not even calling them "incidents" at all.

there's also a bit from rené about how close he is to chris piastri and how he traveled to melbourne from italy Solely to attend his 50th birthday party, and basically how the piastris are just Good People and that oscar's demeanor is what sets him apart. which i thought was sweet :')

also bonus interesting media quote from laurent rossi, which i've seen before but don't remember in its entirety — specifically the part saying that the other academy drivers "weren't as curious" and basically calling oscar the only smart one of the bunch.... 😭😭😭 this freaking guy

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

*tries to organize my thoughts*

*remembers i'm not in school and therefore beholden to neither heaven nor hell nor any man's grading system*

*joyously shredding & tossing all my carefully arranged 3x5 mental notecards into the air like so much beige confetti. raising my arms in victory, cheering raucously until i accidentally inhale bits of homemade confetti*

(*coughing up itty bits of paper like a cat evicting a hairball with a firm understanding of tenants' rights*) wait wat happens next

[egophiliac]

do you have youtube channel?

technically yes, but I just use it to host unlisted videos for embedding, so there's nothing, like, public on it. :') sorry! I basically don't post anywhere except here and occasionally on pixiv (in case it's not obvious, I suck at social media).

[hiding-under-the-willow]

Quick interest check for a project I'm currently considering!

I've been given an assignment in one of my studio classes regarding ephemeral (nonpermanent) art and have had an idea that requires a bit of community involvement.

To keep it basic, my idea involves opening a public Minecraft server for a short period of time (somewhere between 3-5 hours is my current estimate) and recording through the whole duration to document what people use that time to do. Essentially, seeing what kind of things people choose to do or create in a survival sandbox like Minecraft when they know in advance that their time in the world is extremely limited.

I would set up a discord server in advance for those interested to get more information and to connect with other players before the opening, meaning that if you wanted to you could plan in advance as a group.

The server would likely be advertised here, to a few people/groups I know IRL, and in a local campus discord server or two. I would leave it open for anyone involved to invite others. So, you would be playing with strangers.

The server will be vanilla. I'm debating between using in game proximity chat or just letting people use voice chat in the discord at the moment. Obviously using VC wouldn't be required, but I want it to be available.

I would be spectating and recording the event. A ~10 minute compilation of the events of the server would be made for me to turn in for the assignment and would be shown to the class. There is a possibility that compilation or a longer one may end up online afterwards. Anyone else who participates would be free to record, and obviously if anyone wanted to send me their footage to possibly be included in the final edit that would be great

You could do whatever you wanted with the time given. Organize a speedrunning group. Race to kill the dragon. Raid an Ancient City. Work on a build you haven't had an opportunity to use in other servers. Create some weird art. Organize a civilization. Hide in a cave the whole time. Roleplay. Create a fight club. Kill unsuspecting players. Just play casual Minecraft with some friends. Literally whatever.

This would likely be happening somewhere near the 2nd half of this month so that I had time to edit down the footage for class before the end of the semester

[nyamcattt]

i saw ryoko kui's dunmeshi page of laios hugging everyone in his party, and i wanted to make one for sombra with everyone in talon

[weirdshrimphours]

like if you know what corn is. reblog if you live in the corn belt