#but so far we've only done like one task from it because then all this shit happened and we haven't been able to do much else

[thethingything]

I really don't like our brain's ability to jump from "I'm going to organise all this stuff and catch up with a bunch of tasks" to "it's time to get stuck in an increasingly distressing thought spiral for several hours, accidentally trigger yourself, then feel like shit because you haven't done anything but also haven't managed to rest".

like please can we maybe have like a nice middleground where we do a few things and then rest for a while and don't experience the full range of human emotions over the course of about 3 hours

[deathshallbethelastenemy]

you know i adore you (3)

TEEN!gojo x FEM!reader (soulmate AU)

TW⚠️: gojo's being a little manipulative, angst, mentions of death and blood, mostly fluff tho

1: what you see, i see

2: where you go, i go

A/N: gojo is so 1989 coded

Her phone had buzzed for the tenth time during her student council meeting, and for the tenth time, she ignored it. She didn't have to look at the caller ID to know who it was.

Who knew Gojo Satoru would be so clingy? And here she thought she would be the one hanging on his coat tails. Not that they were dating because they weren't. They were friends with emphasis on friends - she had decided that after the high of finally seeing each other face to face.

The morning after was very clarifying for her. She tried to remember her dream the night, only to realize that Satoru had not slept the entire night - he had been watching her sleep the entire night. It was especially clarifying when her mom knocked on her door, and she processed that not only did she have a strange boy in her room, but that he was also soaked in blood. A hectic morning of her hiding her soulmate in the bathroom. It didn't help that he was complaining the entire time - it was a miracle her mother didn't hear him.

Fact of the matter is it would be irresponsible for her to start seeing him romantically without actually getting to know him first and she was a responsible person. So responsible that for the time being, she had to put student council duties first over her friendship with him, especially with the festival coming up.

She would call him after the meeting was over, "Now, do we have everything prepared for the festival tomorrow?"

Everyone nodded as they checked classrooms, and fixed decoration, and they put up the banner outside of the school that would be welcoming everyone in. After this task was done, she would leave.

From atop a ladder, she tied the elastic ribbons into a bow and smoothed the banner over with her hand, "Everything alright on that side?"

Her peer smiled at her from the other ladder directly on the other side of the banner, "Yeah!"

She climbed down the ladder and looked at their handiwork. It was perfect. All that was left was to go get her things.

One of her classmates giggled besides her, "Your boyfriend's here again."

"Who's boyfriend?" She asked.

The girl pointed at the entrance of the school, "Yours." She smiled cheerfully at him, "Hi, Gojo!"

And there he was, walking over to them - pouting.

This was her fault she should've known he would show up if didn't at least answer one of his calls or texts.

"We've been over this." She said, "He is not my boyfriend."

"Does he know that?" The girl said.

Another classmate chimed in, "Why not? he's super cute."

She hoped Satoru hadn't heard that. His ego was big enough as it was.

A pair of strong arms wrapped around her waist as he nuzzled his head in her neck, he said, "Yeah, I am super cute. Why not?"

Of course, he heard them. He looked at her expectantly over his glasses. He really was adorable when he wanted to be, enough that all of her classmates (boys and girls alike) practically swoon for him when he does anything.

She ignored him, "Meetings over. Everyone, go home."

Satoru huffed in annoyance but didn't let go of her, "Why don't you answer your phone?" He tilted his head so she could see more of his vibrant blue eyes despite his glasses, "A text would've been enough."

She fought the urge to run her hands through his hair, "I told you I had a student council meeting today." She twisted in his arms to face him, "and I told you that I wasn't going to be able to call or text until after."

He buried his face in her neck again and groaned, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, you did."

This was a little more than friendly, she knew that, but she also learned at the beginning of their friendship that he also didn't know what personal space was. Besides, she would stop him before he got too far, but she would admit, she liked it when he daringly pressed his lips on her neck to test just how far he can push the boundaries she had set for them. But today, she would enforce them.

She tugged his head back from her neck, "I have to go get my school bag, Satoru."

She stilled as he leaned in and kissed her in the corner of her mouth. Another thing he did to see how far he could go.

She pursed her lips, "That's more than friendly."

He raised an eyebrow, "You mind today?" And let out a dramatic sigh, "it's cause people are watching, isn't it?" He shifted all of his weight on her, "I'm a dirty little secret!"

She finally hugged him back. Not to actually hug him but keep them from toppling over.

She heard footsteps and giggles as her classmates walked past her and Satoru, "Yeah, he's totally not your boyfriend."

She saw a glimpse of Satoru's cheeky smile before he stuck his lower lip out and rubbed his cheek against hers.

And like clockwork, "Aw~"

She glared at her peers, "Do not encourage his behaviour."

They all snickered as they left.

She rolled her eyes at them and grabbed Satoru's cheeks with one hand forcing his lips to pucker as they looked at each other, "Stop." She pushed him off of her and finally, went to go get her belongings.

She sighed when Satoru slipped his hand in hers. If she pulled away he would whine for the rest of the day, so she let their fingers intertwine.

His eyes wandered away from her from time to time. She closed her eyes for a second. Little spectres were staring at them, peeking their heads from their hiding spots, and whenever, Satoru directed his gaze at them they'd duck back into their hiding spots in fear.

Oh.

She opened her eyes and quickened her steps. Her soulmate kept up with her new pace with ease. She opened the door and quickly picked up her school bag, but Satoru took it from her hand before she could sling it around her shoulder and swung it over his instead.

"Those curses shouldn't scare you. You know, they're too scared to come out and hurt anyone," he said, "They're too weak."

She grabbed her phone from the table, "You know I can't see them the way you can."

He pressed a kiss on her temple, "I can handle them, no problem."

She rested her head on his arm. He was right if any curse dared to rear out their ugly heads against them he would excorcise it easily. She was safe. They were safe.

She flipped her phone open as they walked out of the school.

47 MISSED CALLS from Gojo Satoru

He was not serious.

83 TEXT MESSAGES from Gojo Satoru

Oh God.

2 TEXT MESSAGES from Geto Suguru

Geto.S: He's being insufferable

Geto.S: Answer so he'll stop whining to me and Shoko

She shoved her phone in his face, "For real?!"

"You weren't answering!"

She shook her head as she went through the text messages.

Gojo.S: Wanna go check out the new boba place <3

Gojo.S: Whatcha ya doing? :3

Gojo.S: Oh right student council

Gojo.S: How long is it gonna to take?

Gojo.S: it's been 30 minutes :(

Gojo.S: Pls answer the phone </3

Gojo.S: meeting boring

Gojo.S: Ditch :D

She skimmed the rest of texts until she got near the end.

Gojo.S: The decorations look great!! :b

Gojo.S: r ya seriously going to check every classroom?

Gojo.S: For real?????

Gojo.S: ______ <3

Gojo.S: Suguru punched me :(

Gojo.S: kiss it better pls

Gojo.S: How much longer?????

Gojo.S: A ladder for what???

Gojo.S: :'(((((((((

Gojo.S: <////////////3

Gojo.S: I'm heading over there

She flipped her phone close, "You are such a stalker, Satoru."

He gasped offendedly, "I am not."

"Yes, you are."

"Am not!"

"Really?" She said, "What about the time you were literally watching me sleep for hours?"

"I wasn't myself that day." He quickly added, "and you were sad all day! What kind of soulmate would I be if I didn't let you know I was okay?"

"How'd you know where I live?" She retorted.

"It's a cute little bakery!" He smiled, "how is anyone supposed to miss that."

"Uh huh," she hummed, "suuureee~"

She was right, Satoru had somewhat stalked her that day and with how empowered he felt - he tracked down the very little cursed energy she did have with his six eyes.

"You stalk me too!" He pushed back.

"Hardly."

She was lying, but there was a difference between his stalking and her stalking. She only wanted to make sure he was safe. After what happened a few months ago, she couldn't help it and she only stalked him when he goes on missions not for everyday things like he does.

"Liar," Satoru said, "I can tell. I have really good eyes and senses."

She blushed, "It is not the same." Stupid six eyes, "You stalk me for no reason."

"It's not for 'no reason' - I miss you." He readjusted the straps of her school bag on his shoulder, "Besides, you don't have to worry about me like that anymore. No one can get the jump on me like that again."

She knew what he meant: I'm stronger now. Don't worry, I'm not dying anytime soon, and he was right. Nothing could touch him anymore unless he wanted it to, even her. Still, he didn't know what it felt like to have him gone from her soul. It wasn't a fading feeling of him slipping away - No, it was violent and soul wrenching - he was viscerally ripped from her. She was left cold and alone with her heart being the only one left beating. She was with him the whole time when he was desperately trying to learn and understand reverse curse technique to heal his bloody and dying body. All Satoru knew was that she cried.

Soft lips pressed against her cheek and then to the other. It was so sweet, so wonderful she hadn't realized she was crying.

"Is that why we aren't dating yet?" He continued to kiss her tears away, "you scared?"

She hadn't cared for him then and she fell apart. Imagine the damage it would do to her if she was in love with him? Her lip quivered at the thought. With a shaky breath, she buried herself in his chest in a hug, and nodded.

Satoru soothingly ran his long, slender fingers through her hair, "My girl's a bit of a little cry baby, ain't she?"

Her heart fluttered, my girl.

"I have every right to cry," she mumbled stubbornly in his chest.

He kissed the top of her head, "Yeah, you do." He tilted her chin up so she would look at him, "Boyfriends give more kisses you know."

She smiled as she wiped her tears, "No fair, I'm emotionally vulnerable right now."

Satoru's lips pressed ever so softly on hers. It was barely even a kiss, but she melted in his arms all the same. It would be so easy to fall into him and he would catch her every time. Yet, he pulled away and rested his forehead against hers.

She was right. He shouldn't take advantage.

He sighed... if time was what she needed then he could wait a little longer.

Part 4: i'm crazier for you

Gojo: y'all be scared to double text? Not me! Ding ding ding it's me again bitch!

Part 5: baby, you're the life of the party

Part 6: something's made your eyes go cold

Let me know if you wanna be tagged!

@phoenix666stuff @96jnie @mr-underhills-things @whatamidoing89

[di-42]

May's Magnificent Fictions

First off let me share with you a little side note, because the brain wants what the brain wants. After an inner struggle I've finally decided to settle on using the noun "fiction" as countable when referring to works of fanfiction. I will stick to this. It has been bothering me.

And now for something completely enjoyable, let me present to you the lovely fics I've been lucky enough to read in May. I't's been a busy, at times stressful month and I haven't had the chance to read as many as I would have liked. I only made a tiny dent in my Marked for later list, which keeps growing and isn't it wonderful? I still have so much beauty, creativity and bliss to look forward to.

I'll try and tag the writers whose tumblr username I know, so they know how loved they are.

WIPs:

The first two WIPs of this list have made me realise that my new favourite trope is the "they never met" one. Or it might just be that both writers are incredibly good!

My Heart Was Always Yours by @addledmongoose

I love this fic and the author's other work so much that sometimes I worry the writer might think I'm stalking them or something! (I'm not! I promise! I only kind of start staring at my phone around 6pm on a Friday night UK time waiting for an update, that's all!). Anyway. like I was saying, in this fiction Aziraphale and Crowley never met until present day and, at the beginning of the story, neither of them knows the other is an angel or a demon. They have both been tasked by their respective head offices to retrieve Raphael's trumpet so Armageddon can start and they both want to find it and destroy it. So they embark on a journey together, thinking that the other is human. This story is so good. It has an incredibly well thought out plot, the characterisation of both, Aziraphale and Crowley are spot on, their interactions are funny and witty but also deep and very sweet. But the point that's dearest to me is that it shows the character of Aziraphale the respect it deserves, which sadly happens less often than it should. The way the writer describe the building of their relationship and their trust will fill your heart with warmth. The stoty has alternate Aziraphale and Crowley POVs and it's narrated in the first person, which will read funny at first but it will flow within the first couple of chapters and it will have been worth it!

This fiction is updated officially every Saturday but if you're very lucky and depending where you are in the world it might be Friday. Only a few more weeks to go, though, it's almost complete and I'll miss it (But I'll re-read it!) Rated M.

The Last Angel by @bellisima-writes

This is another excellent "they never met" story. In this universe, Crowley and Aziraphale were stationed on earth, Armageddon happened, and Hell won the war. All the angels have been killed, except one. This story only has the first 6 chapters out, but you can already see the wonderful job the author has done of thinking how Aziraphale and Crowley would be without having ever met each other, what would be the same and what would be different. And the same goes for other characters, too: so far we've had an insight of how Beelzebub is like in a different universe and hints at how other characters would behave as well. It is full of promise, it sets expectations that I'm hoping will be subverted and the writer is doing such an excellent job with it all. Please go and show this story some love, you won't regret it!

This fiction is updated weekly, definitely every Friday, but I understand from now on every Wednesday and Friday. Rated M.

The Escort by VinyamaDN @vinyama-23

Human AU where Crowley is an escort and Aziraphale hires him for a date. They start getting to know each other and the rest is history. This story touches very delicate subjects, but it's also funny and fluffy. Please read the tags. Rated E.

Whickber Street by Caedmon @caedmonfaith

Lovely human AU where Aziraphale has a bookshop in Whickber Street and Crowley opens a comic book shop on the same road. It's a slow burn, from one-enemy-to-lovers story, full of humour, charm and fluff. Featuring all the shopkeepers in Whickber Street, which is a treat! Update every Monday and Thursday without fail. Rated E.

Complete works:

And Now All Of My Garden Is Grown In Lavender by ilikeblue

I'm so grateful to my lovely mutual and penpal @dashuntsel for recommending this great human AU. Aziraphale is a successful queer romance author whose books are being adapted for TV. At the start of his career, his agent, Gabriel, insisted he claims to be married in order to gain more readers. Now that the spotlight is on him, Aziraphale needs someone to play the part of his husband. Did I mention that Crowley is Aziraphale's gardener and friend? I'm sure you know where this is going. This story has a little angst and lots of good vibes of trust, friendship, love and loyalty. And a happy ending! Rated E.

Lit by @fellshish

Fellshish is one of my favourite fiction writers and this piece doesn't disappoint. Making people laugh is much more difficult than making people cry and fellshish succeeds in the task so effortlessly! (They can also make you laugh while wanting to cry, but for that you'll have to read their other stories. This one is angst-free). Time-wise this story can be collocated after season 1 and is not canon compliant with season 2. Crowley enrolls in a literature course without realising it was a fantasy literature course. The book that will be read this semester is "Good Omens - The Nice And Accurate Prophecies Of Agnes Nutter, Witch". And the class will get to meet the author, Neil Gaiman. This book seems to describe only too well the event leading to the failed Armageddon, including things that only Aziraphale and Crowley would know. How is that possible? And what would happen if it fell on heavenly or hellish wrong hands? And, oh Satan, did someone say TV adaptation?? A truly amazing, funny piece that will make you feel better after a hard day at work. Rated Teen and up.

Gate Duty by Ginger_cat @gingiekittycat

Not really a crossover, but a Good Omens fiction with elements of The Good Place. You can absolutely read it and enjoy it if you haven't seen The Good Place. placed in time post season 1. Aziraphale is called back to heaven to Gate Duty and he's decided to go despite Crowley's protest. Crowley has Beelzebub assign him to Gate Duty as well, so they don't have to spend 300 years apart. So they set to out to judge the souls and decide whether to send them to the good place or the bad place, as they have rebranded heaven and hell. In the process they meet a few souls that you might or might not know, not the focus of the story. This fiction manages to be funny and incredibly angsty at the same time and it was incredible to see how some of the details in it would resonate with season 2, which wasn't out at the time the fic was written. Rated E.

Of Size And Other Matters by LCwrites

Lovely from strangers to lovers, fake relationship human AU. Aziraphale needs a date to accompany him to an event hosted by his brother, Gabriel. Crowley receives a text from a stranger, clearly by mistake, but why not having some fun? I really like the dynamics between them, the ease and the trust. A tiny bit of angsty pining but quickly and happily resolved. Rated E.

One shot:

Not Nice by Sad_chaos_goblin @sad-chaos-goblin

Great one shot that follows the wall slamming scene!What would have happened if the former nun hadn't interrupted their "Intimate moment"? This fic is a treat, sweet and hot and fluffy all at the same time. Rated E.

April's list here.

June's list here.

[bonefall]

Now we've got all six of em, can I just say that CRIPES ALMIGHTY the titles for a starless clan suck major ass! Both separately AND as a group!!

I Do Not Rewrite Arcs Until They Are Done BUT DO YOU WANNA HEAR MY WIP RENAMES SO FAR

Remember: Don't get too attached yet, the only one I can say with certainty will show up somewhere is the title of Book 4.

ARC RENAME: A Starless Clan -> A Prayer Unanswered

The original name is really good but I'm getting a vibe that the theme of the rework is going to be... when love isn't enough.

It's about how some things can't get better. It's about how all the kindness in the world couldn't get Bramblestar to turn around as a leader. It's about how Heartstar might have had good intentions, but occupation never works out in the end. It's Nightheart's relationship to his family being salvageable, not because they don't all want to fix it, but because his life has worked out best with distance from them.

So, Prayers Unanswered is both about the religious part of how RiverClan doesn't have a leader and can't get in proper touch with StarClan, but it's also about every other wish that hasn't come true.

River -> Starcrossed One of the VERY large changes I'm considering is actually massively reducing Nightheart's POV. I'm thinking of doing this, not because I dislike him, but because I think it might actually be a better story if the audience is guessing as to his intentions just as much as the other characters are. So, until he's ACTUALLY needed later, his chapters are short and sparse. So Starcrossed would be about setting up the troubles of the Clans, especially the parts of the conflicts I want to highlight more in BB. It would be setting up the rule changes for "starcrossed lovers" (lmao) but also the brewing anger that the cats have towards code changes... and StarClan, if I do decide to keep the newest revelations and work them in better, in hindsight.

Sky -> Fracture There's a phrase in my head that is so interesting to me that I need to do something with it. "Only frozen water can fracture." I want to make the RiverClan situation worse than in-canon. First of all, there's going to be identifiable groups this time which begin to scramble for power. Instead of having the cats just... forget how to do the chores they've done their whole lives, the Clan is splitting up into factions. This is why they won't be able to win against Heartstar later, when she decides to take drastic measures. They're not fighting like a Clan; they're fighting like a bunch of disorganized teams. There should also be a bunch of needless injuries, maybe even a border aggression that lead to a death, before Heartstar barges in. I also want to make this a bigger part of the story, Erins willing. Too much time was spent on the Catnip Patrol, imo, we're going to have ANOTHER big trip and I don't want this one to eat up so much time. Rowankit is also still going to die; and maybe a couple of elders around the Lake too.

Shadow -> Snakes and Turnclaws Berryheart's hate movement has been too tame, from canon books 1 - 4 as of the time of writing. It's ridiculous that they haven't even injured anyone in the Battle Cat series. I saved Antfur from the previous arc so that she can die here. We've been seeing the Anti-Turnclaw movement rise from the first book, so now with Nightheart's boldness leading him to a place where he will be unsafe, we need to see his rusty butt in actual danger. I'm even thinking that, instead of Nightheart failing his task on purpose, Sunbeam makes him fail by stopping him from getting killed. I need to know the ending of ASC first though, because I MIGHT be having Berryheart getting her exile here. Whatever kills Antfur is either deniable enough that she's able to squeak by while Sunbeam quietly leaves (refusing to accuse her mother of anything publicly) OR it's so obvious that Heartstar casts her out on the spot. Meanwhile, we see the OTHER half of ShadowClan's conflict as RiverClan finally unites... against them, as their common enemy. Task failed successfully, Heartsy

Thunder -> The Source of the River I'm still unspeakably proud of this outline. There's so much I want to do here. She's going to come back with a DND party and I'm hoping that all of them end up in RiverClan with her; INCLUDING Nightheart. I want the fact that he accompanied Frostpaw to actually be the final straw for him. While he's away, Sunbeam is acclimating to ThunderClan and falling in love with her new home. There are parts she misses about ShadowClan, but as she's adopted by Sparkpelt, taken as a secondary apprentice by the deputy, smiled upon by Squirrelstar after she pressures Bramblestar to abdicate... this starts to feel like this is where she belongs. And that's too hard for Nightheart to ever come back to. "You come to the source of the river, and are vexed that you do not find the water that is flowing downstream" dude.... man. That's what BB's about. Change. I also really want Nightheart to choose HIS OWN NAME by the end of this series-- so at some point in this book he should finally admit "Nightheart" wasn't his choice either. (I'm thinking Deltastep. Because his journey with Frostpaw begins at the southern delta of my reworked map.)

And I haven't done them for Book 5 or Book 6 yet, especially since I might end up condensing them or chopping them up to put into the other books.

I do know I'm really love to play with the idea of a starless sky for one of the last books though, I may or may not keep Splashtail's lack of faith in StarClan (hate the Evil Atheist thing they keep doing), but the idea of a "Pitch-Black Star" absolute fucks as symbolism, ngl. Maybe something like "A Gap in the Stars" or "Constellation's Void" or "The Stolen Star"

Also also also I'm having Curlfeather come back as a Dark Forest Demon for at LEAST one scene.

I don't give a good goddamn if they don't go to the Dark Forest or not. ONE weird coincidence that could totally have been Just Good Luck but was actually Curlfeather. Let Her Drown Splashtail, she deserves it. Let her be a malevolent spirit who protects her baby. RiverClan can whine all it wants about Mothwing who ooo doesn't believe in God, Frostpaw's got a demon. Cry about it

Also I hope Frostpaw becomes leader because I'll make it go hard

[neeterloveschenford]

Thoughts on Tim Bradford

I was thinking about some of the things we've seen about Tim over the years and boy, is it now making so much more sense. I know a lot of this has already been meta'd and have been very eloquently said. But I just needed to put my two cents in.

Let's start with what Isabelle said to Tim in 1x12. She never felt like she measured up to Tim because he saw things so black and white. Tim had no idea that she felt that way and never thought that about her. And I've always thought she was wrong and was just projecting her own sense of failure onto him. But now I'm re-thinking that stance. We know from 4x19 and 4x20 that Tim was involved in black ops when he was in Afghanistan. His whole "Reaper" persona is obviously from that time in his service. We know from so many things that have come out in the last couple of decades that those involved in those types of operations often blurred the lines of legal and moral. I think that once he returned stateside that his rigid moral code was part of how he dealt with his PTSD. He probably didn't even realize he was going that far. Think about it, he went from black ops to being "Eagle-eye", the cop that took every order literally and got his shop tagged while standing there. Someone who was involved in off book missions wouldn't naturally be that rigid. I think it was easy to fall back into that type of mindset because of his childhood. I'm sure he needed to have every duck in a row when he was younger to make sure he never did anything to set his dad off. But having seen and done some bad things in the midst of war, Tim had to default back to this to be able to integrate back into society. He's often scorned psychology over the years. So I imagine he dealt with the trauma of war on his own by becoming that black and white guy that Isabelle was talking about. It was only after Lucy entered his life and started challenging him to be a better man that he started to see those shades of grey that life is all about. Remember in 5x17 when he showed mercy to the Make a Dream kid's dad? Season 1 Tim would never. He even admitted that Lucy was a good influence. Chances are he would have mellowed over time, but I believe he still would have had a certain amount of rigidity. That's why he told Isabelle in 5x20 that Lucy was different. She showed him that he had to readjust his mindset to be a better man.

Another thing that struck me is how he is basically treating Lucy like his boot or aide right now. If it was Angela that knew something was up I could totally see it. He could possibly blow up her life and it wouldn't be worth it. She is his best friend, but not his life partner. I could even see it if this had happened circa 5x6 or 5x7 when Chenford was trying to find their way back to friendship. But things have changed. I know that "fierce protector" Tim will do anything to protect the people he loves. I mean he offered to take the fall for falsifying those after action reports so that his friend with a family wouldn't be affected. But Lucy is not a friend, not an old Army buddy or his boot or aide. She is the most important person in his life. The reason he has begun to heal from all of the trauma he has had to face. He can't hide this from her. I am hoping that he realizes that next episode. Cause as juicy as this angst is, I'm ready for it to be over.

One last thing, as hard as it is to watch them fighting, it's what Chenford needs. I think this is going to bring so much to the surface that they need to face. Now Lucy is getting a taste of what being the person left at home feels like when their partner is UC. I think Lucy is going to take Tim to task for the whole going behind her back with Grey thing. And they both are going to have to deal with their communication issues. I feel like they are only going to come out of this stronger.

[dicenote]

touta matsuda

discuss

omg YES ty! This is gonna be a long, disorganized ramble, so bear with me!

Touta Matsuda. My blorbo, skrunky scrimblo, love of my life, etc.

There are so many things about Matsuda's character that I could talk about. His impulsivity, his loyalty, his uncertainty... All of it makes a very real and very interesting character. And I think that a lot of his traits shine in one of the most horrifying scenes from his perspective: the Yellow Box Warehouse.

Like, let's take a step back and look at the numbers here. On one side of the warehouse, we've got a guy claiming to be L, and the three members of the old Kira Task Force that he brought with him. On the other side, we've got a different guy claiming to be L and three members of the SPK that he brought with him (oh. and the guy from the Task Force that got kidnapped in the mix). Outside, Kira's accomplice is lying in wait. So we've got ten people in all who are ready for the final showdown. The reveal. The evidence that will finally end this years-long nightmare and point to the true identity of Kira.

And of those 10 people, only one of them doesn't have a clue who Kira really is.

Light is Kira. Mikami is X-Kira and finds out who Kira is as soon as he looks in the room. Near and the SPK are all on the same page. Mogi and Aizawa know. Ide's a bit more on the fence but he wasn't completely in the dark. So Matsuda is the only one who goes in totally blind.

If anyone were to re-write Death Note purely from Matsuda's perspective, the Warehouse scene would go from tense to horrifying. To (nearly) everyone else there, this confrontation isn’t meant to reveal an unexpected truth, it’s to confirm something that they already know. But for Matsuda? Near's request to meet at the warehouse is, at worst, a tactic to once again frame Light. Because Light obviously can't be Kira, right? Light will show Near that he's wrong, and the investigation will continue as normal until the real Kira is caught.

But then Near presents that irrefutable evidence, and everything that Matsuda knew for over five years comes crumbling down. Light starts monologuing about how the world had to be fixed and how no one could ever make it as far as he did. Kira and Light are one and the same. Matsuda always thought that Kira was a well-intentioned person who was helping change the world. Ide and Aizawa and Mogi believed that Kira was evil, they were much stronger in their resolve than Matsuda ever could be. But Light had confessed to him once that he too questioned if what they were doing was right. If Kira was doing right.

Light has always been Kira.

And then comes the absolutely tasty part where Matsuda shoots Light. I love how chapter 106 is called "Intent to Kill", because it reminds me of how Matsuda and Light are foils to each other. Better yet, they can be compared against a man they both held such deep respect for, Soichiro Yagami.

See, Soichiro threatens to kill people a good couple times, and even holds a gun to his son's face, but he never has any intent to kill. In fact, he's never killed anyone, as (I think) Mello points out. It's almost kind of silly. Like, Soichiro draws the line at firing bullets or writing full names in the Death Note, and that's it? Everything else is fair game? Weird line to draw, but go off I guess.

Light, meanwhile, justifies killing thousands. But only with the Death Note. With the Death Note, his intent to kill becomes a righteous one, another step on the path to becoming God of a New World. The criminals deserved to die. Those who get in Kira's way deserve to die. Because Light isn't a serial killer. He's doing the right thing! Crime is going down, war has stopped, and Light is the only one who could have possibly gone this far and done this much good.

And then we're back to Matsuda. I believe the mafia raid is the first time we see Matsuda using a gun, and we see that he's damn good at it. So good, in fact, that he's able to fire only non-lethal shots to get the Death Note back. (Also, fun tidbit: I'm pretty sure he's the only one who doesn't go into the raid with a rifle, he's just got like, a standard-issue cop pistol with a light on it.) The same thing happens in the warehouse, at least initially. He fires at Light's hand to get him to stop writing. Then he and Light yell at each other for a little bit about (who else?) Soichiro. Light demands that Matsuda shoot the others, because he's the only one who understands Kira. When Matsuda hesitates, Light resumes writing Near's name. Then Matsuda fires again and again and again. Anything to make Light stop. Anything to make it all stop. But it becomes obvious that he's not just shooting Light as a deterrent. What does Matsuda say as he's doing it?

"He needs to die!"

The others literally have to drag Matsuda away before he can execute Light on the spot.

Matsuda is a character full of contradictions. He dedicates over half a decade to fighting Kira, but he doubts the whole time. He tries to follow in Soichiro's footsteps but in the end makes the same justification that Light did when he first started writing in the Death Note. This man is a criminal. He deserves to die. The Yellow Box Warehouse not only exposed Light's true colors, but Matsuda's as well.

[lunareiitic]

CANTO 4 SPOILERS BE WARNED

I think it's really interesting (and clever) that we're a third of the way through Limbus' plot (theoretically. 12/4 = 3 after all) and we've split the focus characters in half based on who is actually growing because of their Canto and who isn't, while also showing multiple narrative ways to show that progression (or lack thereof).

Gregor and Rodya have already done their growing. Gregor's a war veteran whose traumatic past should be long behind him, and his character didn't shift after his Canto. His refusal with regards to the whole Yuri thing wasn't a shocking twist, it was the culmination of years of rejecting the life that his mother made for him.

Rodya rejects the idea that she has to develop as a character entirely. Canto 2 is mostly a celebration of Rodya- she makes her own luck and doesn't require these things like "character growth" and "dynamics". She was a one woman wrecking crew then and she's one now, plans and friends be damned. It's why she's able to reject Sonya's olive branch: he's predicating his entire plan on the idea that Rodya would have learned from the Tax Collector Incident. But she didn't, and she knows that.

Sinclair's Canto 3 marks the first Canto where we're actually examining the failings of a member of the team. Sinclair's immaturity, fawn response and unwillingness to take responsibility did directly lead to all of the bad shit that happened to him. Even if Kromer would have done it anyways, Canto 3 takes Sinclair to task for what he did, but in the end, he can't follow through. It's beautiful and tragic that he needs Demian to bail him out of what should have been his cathartic moment of triumph. Sinclair's growing is actively still happening. Canto 3 is only the beginning.

Which brings us to the most recent Canto and Yi Sang. Yi Sang in hindsight is the perfect character to follow up Canto 3 with because Yi Sang is essentially Sinclair if Demian wasn't around. Yi Sang's narrative is about apathy and passive suicidality- he doesn't care what happens to him because life has lost all meaning to him. Sinclair still has some fight in him, all Yi Sang has is ashes. Or so he thinks. Dongrang and Dongbaek are characters who will never move on from their past, despite what both of them think. Yi Sang, through mirroring them, ends up with the most radical character development we've seen so far: true catharsis. Unlike our three previous characters, Yi Sang's Canto manages to get down to the core of his issues and he's able to understand what he must do to get better and does. He conquers Dongbaek (embodiment of rage) and Dongrang (embodiment of despair) and ascends to a place of healing away from them. This is a very conventional, classic character arc structure seen in fiction since the dawn of time, it's classic because it works. But it feels so refreshing and new here in Limbus Company because we waded through three quagmires of difficult regrets, abuses, and traumas that refuse to be handled so easily. Given that our remaining characters are based on murderers (Hell Screen, The Stranger), self-saboteurs (The Odyssey, Moby Dick, Don Quixote, Faust), and the legacy of racism (Wuthering Heights), I'm betting that Hong Lu's might be our brightest spot moving forward. (But who knows. They could give us another goofy Canto out of nowhere like they did in Canto 2. Limbus Company contains multitudes.)

[genlossranboothrowaway]

what you said about philza’s privilege in terms of the qsmp experience (and just in general) is a great point tbh. i believe that HE believes in what he’s saying taking into account that he has access to different information than we do (not necessarily MORE, just different — dudes not on twitter for example so may not have seen testimonies from ex admins, but has info from people still involved in the server that we are not privy to etc). ultimately he’s only intending to talk to his community and reiterates that he’s not a spokesperson for the project, just another guy playing on his friends server taking what’s been told to him in good faith, so his truth is his truth but not necessarily the objective truth etc.

one thing I’ll say about the ‘no rp actors’ thing is that probably that’s referring to those specifically hired to do full time rp. my thought is that some admins still on the project that have been doing rp (the ‘5 active’ ones) are doing it for fun in the downtime from their main tasks. this seems pretty indicative when you only really see them doing this with bbh, because if it was actually their ‘job’ they would be available for the other creators still playing too. (i saw a bbh fan comment that ‘these admins suck at improv’ which, yeah. not their primary job probably lol). the only admin I’ve seen hang out with several creators is ‘ollie’ who we now know is ricardão, and that speaks for itself really given how many hours he’s clocked on the server just for fun outside of his ‘work’ obligations. so it’s like, should the new team specifically be telling the admins not to rp on the server if this is the case, to strictly stick to their tasks, or is it better to allow them autonomy over their time regardless of the arrangement? idk. in the end i’m reserving most of my judgement for if/when they release a statement on what changes have been made after (/if) this ‘restructuring’ gets done.

Hi anon, thx for the ask.

Even if they are not rp admins specifically I personally don't think they should be playing on the server at all right now unless they are getting paid for it. Letting the admins do volunteer work like that sets a dangerous precedent moving forward for all admins workers. The studio will be more inclined to hire (or keep employed) people who will do extra just because they want to, without pay, and it will end up the same way it is now: people being underpaid and expected to do much more than they are reasonably able to.

It's easier to picture when you imagine that it's something more boring. There's a guy at this restaurant that hasn't been paying their staff for overtime but he keeps pulling overtime anyway because he loves cleaning dishes so so so much. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn't, but he still shouldn't be encouraged to do so until the restaurant gets their shit figured out.

"Autonomy over their time" would make more sense if they were being paid hourly wages or a fixed salary, neither of which we've seen evidence for. As far as I'm aware all employees who have come forward were paid in unrecorded one-time payments or as contractors for a fixed project/piece/job.

Quackity Studios is going to have to figure out how to pay workers who are often working overtime hours, whose hours are not fixed and fluctuate wildly and unpredictably, and who are living in many different economic climates, which is a task I do not envy them at all.

They also (best case scenario) will have to figure out retrospectively how much they owe all of their unpaid and underpaid workers from the past year. I do not have much faith in this happening given the size and scope of this task and the fact that there is no way, at this moment, that the QSMP has made anywhere close to the amount of money that cost to run it. I personally think that QS is going to fight very hard to not have to pay any of their workers for work previously done, although I would love to be wrong.

Even considering just those two things, not to even mention the logistics of a structural and leadership overhaul that we've been told is taking place, it is irresponsible and honestly self sabotaging to continue to allow those admins to rack up rp time on the server.

The RP admins are not essential for continuing to run the server. If they are being paid that is money that could go towards backpay for the under/unpaid workers. If they are not being paid their activity on the server is only increasing the potential liability QS has in regards to their unpaid laborers.

[howlingday]

The Phenomenal YANG

Adam: Something attacked us in there, and it wasn't a Grimm. If Xiao Long knows what it was, I'm going to find her and then I'm going to shove my sword down her throat, and then I'm going to ask her.

Ironwood: That was Xiao Long.

Adam: Could you explain that?

Ironwood: Xiao Long's task was a tangent of bio-tech. Your suit is our engineering solution, and Xiao Long was working on a biological one; improve the huntsman and not the weapon.

Adam: You're telling me she becomes that thing on her own?

Ironwood: I don't have to answer that, Taurus. Xiao Long is tough, definitely a fighter, but she's not a soldier. Not like us.

Adam: Then why not hand the data off to someone else?

Ironwood: Because she IS the data. And as far as I'm concerned, that woman's body is the property of the Kingdom of Atlas.

--------------------------------------------------

Cardin: What the hell was that? Whatever it is, we're ready to-

CRDL: (See Yang) OH SHI-

YANG: (Tackles CRDL off building)

Cardin: (Stands from the rubble) Ngh... Let's see which one of us is the strongest.

YANG: YANG STRONGEST THERE IS!

Cardin: Not if me and my boys have anything to say about it!

--------------------------------------------------

Blake: Yang...?

Blake: (Runs up, Hugs her)

Yang: It's alright...

Blake: When did you...? How did you...? Are you...?

Yang: I'm alright. Sorry I didn't- Look, I don't have time to explain it right now; do you still have your dad's old research?

Blake: I'm sorry, but... General Ironwood took it all already. Then he wiped every computer we had after getting it.

Yang: No...

Blake: But I was able to get in there before it got hauled off. I thought that it might help us later.

Yang: Blake, I... I don't know what to say.

Adam: Do I have permission to take the shot, sir?

Ironwood: Negative. You might hit Belladonna's daughter.

Yang: !

Adam: Damn! She spotted me!

Yang: Blake, go.

Blake: What...?

Yang: Get out of here. You need to get as far away from me as you can, right now! GO! (Runs)

Blake: YANG!

Ironwood: XIAO LONG, YOU ARE SURROUNDED!

Blake: (Charges Ironwood, Caught) Leave her alone!

Ironwood: Get her out of here now!

Blake: Ngh! H-Hey! Get your hands off me!

Blake: YANG! RUN!

Yang: Let... her... go...!

YANG: RAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

--------------------------------------------------

Ghira: I think we've done it, but... there's still the risk that this procedure might kill you.

Yang: Trust me, Dr. B; if it doesn't work, I'm better off dead.

Soldier: I have visual on the target, General.

Adam: Let me in there, General; I can take her now.

Ironwood: Negative. You're a last resort, Taurus.

Adam: No, what I am is sick of waiting.

Soldier: Sir, wait! General Ironwood, sir, Lieutenant Taurus is on the move!

Ghira: Please, try to understand; even if this does work, and we do induce an episode, it doesn't mean that it will cure you. Best case scenario, it's an antidote to suppress a specific flare-up.

Yang: ...!

Blake: Yang, stay with me!

YANG: RAAAAAAAAAAAAGH! RGH! RGH!

Blake: DAD! NOW!

Ghira: (Types into computer)

YANG: AAARGH! RAAAAAGH! AAaaagh...

Ghira: (Walks over)

Blake: ...

Yang: Did... Did it work?

Ghira: Perhaps. It seems we permanently neutralized the cells, though it's also possible that we only suppressed the event. Honestly, I'd be willing to bet on the latter, but we don't know since no prior subjects survived.

Yang: ...What test subjects?

Ghira: Your condition, it's- It's a medical marvel, to put it lightly, and something this astounding couldn't simply just waste away! So, we concentrated the experiment to develop more.

Yang: We need to destroy all of it!

Ghira: But... this gift-

Yang: This GIFT is a lot more trouble than it's worth, Doctor B!

Ghira: Even with the antidote developed?

Yang: Atlas doesn't want an antidote, Doc; they want a weapon, and if they get it... NGH! (Collapses)

Blake: YANG!

Ironwood: (Walks in) Escort the asset and Ms. Belladonna to the bullhead and confiscate everything. Dr. Belladonna, we expect your full cooperation. Welcome to the Atlas Military. (Exits)

Ghira: ...

Adam: (Enters, Draws weapon)

Ghira: What have I done to deserve this hostility?

Adam: It's not what you did; it's what you're going to do.

Adam: Give me everything you got from Xiao Long.

Ghira: ...You look like you already got some of her in you already.

Adam: And I want more. You saw what she was like, didn't you? Make me that.

Ghira: But... given what's already in you, there's no telling what the side-effects could do! The mixture could make you... It could make you more BEAST than man.

Adam: (Presses blade)

Ghira: Er, I was just making sure... I need an informed consent, and you've clearly given it.

--------------------------------------------------

Blake: How could you do this to innocent people?

Ironwood: Be quiet. If you weren't an asset of your father's, you'd also be in hand-cuffs!

KABOOM!

Pilot: SIR, XIAO LONG IS IN THE STREET!

Yang: (Holds up hands) But... I'm right here!

Ironwood: Get me a visual! Turn this bullhead around!

ADAM: (Tanking tank fire, Tossing mechs)

Ironwood: Dammit! It's Taurus!

Yang: You can't stop it. You have to kill it!

Ironwood: SIT YOUR ASS DOWN!

Yang: (Opens hangar door) I'm the only thing that can stop it!

Blake: Yang, it's too dangerous! It's crazy!

Yang: I know, but I have to try! Sorry... (Falls out of bullhead)

--------------------------------------------------

ADAM: (Unconscious)

YANG: (Looks up)

Blake: (Flinches)

YANG: B L A K E . . .

YANG: (Bounds away)

Blake: ...Goodbye, General. I hope it was worth it. (Leaves)

Ironwood: ...

[tia-amorosa]

Sunset Died - Bunch Family

Connections (Part 3)

After staring blankly out of the window for a while, Judy felt her husband's hands gently embracing her, which made her flinch a little. “Hey, relax, it's just me, hn. Are you watching the rain?"/ ”I wasn't really paying attention to it and my thoughts are louder than the drops pattering against the window.” Judy's voice was quiet and sounded a little tortured.

“What's keeping you busiest at the moment?"/ ”You know that, Jack. Everything here… There's still so much to do. Winter's coming, most people here still don't have any heating. Smaller and bigger things are needed everywhere… Then the wedding, I promised Blair I'd take care of the organization… And…"/ ‘Why don't you listen to me, or at least to our son?’.

Judy knew what he meant, of course. She almost felt like crying, but she just swallowed it. “Someone has to help them, Jack…"/ ”But you can't be everywhere at once. It's only a matter of time and you'll get a burn out. Is that what you want?”. She shook her head in small movements. “You're so good at organizing. Then make a plan on how best to divide up certain tasks. You really need to relax again”. He gently stroked her shoulders.

Judy was silent for a while. She had to think hard about everything she had done to help in the last few months. It was almost too much “Let go. The people here are almost underwhelmed because of you, because you take so much off their hands. help should actually come from somewhere else.” Judy took a deep, shaky breath “H-hh, I don't even know how to relax properly anymore…”/ “I do…”

Judy was still wearing her old nightgown, which had actually become far too loose for her as she and her husband had lost a lot of weight in recent months. So it was easy for Jack to slowly slip the nightgown off her shoulders so that it fell to the floor. Then he pulled her close to him. For a moment, she looked at him almost skeptically. “Am I… still pretty enough for you?”. He stroked her chin and looked intently into her eyes “Always”.

It had been quite a while since Judy and her husband had been so close. But Jack was still able to seduce his wife. Even if a while ago he still felt uncomfortable about how his appearance would look to others. Sometimes such large scars have a repulsive effect on others. But no one has turned their back on him because of it. And for Judy, he is and remains the man she always wanted….

It's the next morning and despite it being Sunday, the family's day starts quite early. “Mom, can I go to VJ's?"/ ‘It's not even really light outside yet and you want to leave the house again? Can't we at least have breakfast together, is that too much to ask?’/ ”N-no. Sorry. Are you still mad… about the pictures?”. Judy took a moment before answering in a calm and gentle voice. “I was young once too, Lisa, but things like that didn't occur to us so much back then.”.

“It was just for fun. The pictures are just for the two of us, nobody else can see them"/ ”you say that so easily. fun quickly turns serious and then? I don't want anything to happen to you"/ ”VJ doesn't want that either. I know he's difficult sometimes, but…"/ ”You just know him better than anyone else here, you trust each other, I know. Please stay for breakfast, okay?”.

“OK, I'll stay until after dinner. “/ “Thanks…Lisa?”/ “Yes?”/ “I assume you two… Surely more has happened, right?”. Lisa knew that this time would come at some point. But now of all times, so early in the morning, while her mother was preparing breakfast? “You want to know if we've already had sex?"/ ‘Well, yes…’/ ‘No.’/ ‘No??’/ ‘Why are you so surprised?’/ ‘Well, because…hh, it's VJ, I thought he might be pestering you’.

Lisa slowly turned around and leaned against the wall. “No, he's not pushing me, Mom. It just hasn't been the right time yet. But he… He tries really hard, sometimes he even does romantic things…"/ ‘VJ, a romantic? Wow….’/ ”Yes, unbelievable, I know. But don't worry, there aren't even any condoms here anymore, so we'll probably wait until we're 30”. Judy had to smile a little. But the way Lisa had been talking about her boyfriend recently and all the things she'd said about him almost seemed to convince her a little.

A little later at breakfast. “Did you get anything done last night, Daddy?"/ ”Well… I hope so. Now we'll have to wait and see."/ ‘It's got really cold outside, winter's sure to come quickly this year’/ ‘That's exactly why I'll be on my way in a minute.’/ ‘Judy…’/ ‘Don't worry, darling. You told me to make a plan and I have’.

Ethan watched his father eat. “Is everything okay, Dad? Unlike mom, you're the one who looks pretty knackered today“/”cough, huh? Thanks too. I'm fine, I've just… slept a bit too little, that's all.“/”Then it's probably time for a midday rest today.”… After they had finished eating, Lisa stood up “I'm going now, Mom…”/ “All right. Oh… Please wait outside for a moment”.

As Judy was planning to go on a trip anyway, she accompanied her daughter outside. Before that, she went into the bedroom for a moment. When she was outside, she slipped something into her daughter's pocket without saying a word. When Lisa felt for it with her hand and realized what it was, she looked at her mother with wide eyes. “I hope you know how to do that, don't you?” Lisa nodded with a big grin and hugged her mother, who whispered something else in her ear. Then she ran off in the direction of VJ…. “I need to start trusting her too. Well then, let's go.”.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

End of this Part

@greenplumbboblover 😊

[archduchessgortash]

Let's talk about the Clasped Book...

The Astral Plane/Astral Sea, where Vlaakith kept the Mysterious Artifact (Astral Prism), and the Experiment on Cruor (not pictured). Here's a link, though...

Also realistic timeframes for completion of Act 1 and Act 2 up to reaching Moonrise Towers to even find the book. (This part turned into a semi-walkthrough for Act 1).

Incoming timeline theories and possible clarification to fix this weird inconsistency...

The Clasped Book implies that roughly a tenday has passed since a tadpoled Durge left Moonrise Towers on the Nautiloid. I don't think that this timeline for Durge's departure is feasible. In order for it to work, we have to speedrun the first two acts, and assume that the time required to complete the mission to steal the Astral Prism was negligible.

Let's start with the Astral Sea, where Vlaakith's stronghold was located. You can NOT spend weeks or months on the astral plane and have no time pass on the prime material plane. It will feel as though little time has passed to you, as essentially your own internal clock is going in slow-motion while you are there. However, on your home plane, time is chugging along as usual. If you spent 30 years in the Astral, then pop back into the Prime, you won't have aged at all, but your friends at home will have spent all those years without you, aging accordingly.

Time spent in the Astral cannot account for this short time frame. It, in fact, makes it even less likely to be correct, as the lack of time's impact on those in the Astral might cause them to take longer to complete tasks. At the very least, we need to appreciate that any time spent in the Astral, has also passed on Toril.

Knowing the location of Vlaakith's stronghold doesn't mean it will only take five minutes for the strike team to steal the Astral Prism. Realistically, there would be recon and planning prior to the assault, especially with the Emperor running the mission. Even controlled by an elder brain, illithid are cunning. We could assume all recon was done before Durge was moved there, which is possible. We would still need at least a day for the mission itself. The day of our escape, which starts on the Nautiloid, we land on the riverbank, and it's still daylight out. Thus the heist did not happen on that day.

In order for the Clasped Book to be accurate, we have exactly nine days to get through Act 1 and arrive at Moonrise Towers to search Balthazar's quarters.

How long does it take to get to Moonrise Towers in a non-speedrun game?

Day 1: [Post-Nautiloid] When we wake up, we've probably already blown our spell slots or other long-rest rechargeable class-specific limitations. What makes the most sense is to collect our nearby followers (Shart, Astarion & Gale), fight the brains, then long rest before continuing. We could push on, relying on our newfound companions to carry us, but most players I know don't do that. We long rest, listen to our new friends worry and complain, and now have eight days to make the timeline work.

Day 2: We clear those nearby ruins and meet everyone's favorite death god turned camp comic relief, Withers 'No' Boneman. We may or may not notice Lae'zel tucked away, cozy in her cage, but if we do, we snatch up our adorable grinch and rest again, because once more, we are out of spell slots or bardic inspiration, etc. More complaining and concerns, Lae'zel is glowering at our back constantly now, but we have seven days to make that book not a liar.

Day 3: We approach the grove and a fight breaks out. Cue Wyll's campy superhero entrance and our biggest fight so far. A little strategy ensures we win with no casualties. We save a slightly ungrateful tiefling from a bugbear, possibly kick an innocent if cranky squirrel, stop a fight or punch one or more of the humanoids involved, then head further in. Finally, we can sell all this junk... We meet Rolan [I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight playing in our heads], convince him to stay or buzz off (how could you?), then recruit Wyll. We chat up anyone who will talk to us, deal with Sazza, meet a blacksmith and a hilarious old lady who is totally NOT a hag, let Lae'zel domme a tiefling, get robbed by some kids, then watch a guy turn into a bear. We meet Volo, steal an amulet from a different bear, stop Khaga from becoming a child murderer (hopefully), learn some stuff about Shart and talk to a healer who promptly tries to kill us... unless we promise to drink poison before we turn. After five-finger discounting some sus documents, we realize we should rest again, but we'll just look around the grove a bit more. Should be safe enough, right? We take the path to the left and poof! A devil pops up. As if the day can't get weirder, we wander around, find a dead boar and Astarion acts even more sus than usual. We take our rest after that, then let a hangry, fanged twunk bite us or we stake him. Luckily for us that amulet we stole from the bear can clear our Bloodless debuff. Six days left.

Day 4: We meet Alfira (be nice to her or else!), follow the singing and save a kid from harpies. Then we loot and get Mol to give us back our stuff, but she wants us to steal the idol. It's worth doing, but not right away, so we leave the grove and head toward the Blighted Village. We meet a True Soul and get his tadpole, or not. Then we deal with an owlbear in a cave. Get more Shart lore. For Durges, the bridge is your trigger for a certain event related to your plot. We talk our way into the village, save the best deep gnome in the known universe from his plight, slap around or intimidate goblins, maybe con a few ogres, interrupt some coitus, and explore a secret door or two. Also, Gale needs to nom a necklace or something to stave off sploding. We are probably out of spells again after fighting the undead in the Alchemist's basement. We're definitely out if we failed to talk our way in and had to fight. Also Shart probably wants to talk after finding stuff. Durges might want to KO a certain bard if they want her to appear in Act 2, but then we rest again. Five days left.

Day 5: Everyone is giving our Durges the side eye, but... Spiders in the well! Spiders in the well! Toast the Matriarch and her kids, then loot thoroughly. Give a vampire a book to beat Cazador to death with. Now we either pop into the Sunlit Wetlands (Swamp) to find dirt on Khaga, or head to the goblin camp. I usually save the swamp for later, to keep buying potions from Ethel at the grove. We can also detour and grab Karlach, take out the phony paladins and talk to Scratch at this point, and I'd recommend it. Lot of looting, too. Don't forget to feed your wizard. I usually avoid the gnolls for a little bit. We talk our way into the goblin camp, then have the Astral Prism related cutscene (hello, handsome, younger man 🤔), which we know means we should rest, or we will miss story points. So that's what we do. Because we play RPGs for story. When devs link story progression to resting, their timelines are at the mercy of their players. Rest, meet Mizora, then our dream visitor, realize we are not going to be mind flayers in like 2 days, phew! Four days left to validate Balthazar's concept of time...

Day 6: We deal with the owlbear cub if he's still around (he better be, you monsters), distract an incompetent bard, find out that the goblins kidnapped a Duke, maybe bite off a goblin's toe if we want to fight the whole camp now, or steal his ring instead, chat up more gobbos, looting carefully as we go. We enter the temple, take or don't take the brand, then follow Priestess Gut and we either submit and get saved by Korilla or we beat down an old goblin lady who has a crush on Gortash (no, not me). We can work our magic to save the guy from being thrown in the spider pit if we are quick and clever enough. Then we save Volo, meet everyone's favorite BDSM boytoy Abdirak, free the overzealous lad on the rack and get his info. We con Dror Ragzlin, but don't talk to Minty yet unless you're taking her down permanently here. We can free Halsin and ask him to wait. Since a lot of this isn't combat, we can finish a bunch in one day. Once we go check out Waukeen's Rest, we have to save everyone from the fire without leaving the area or they die, and we will have gnolls to fight and Zhents to save if we approach from the fast-travel point near the paladins. Once that's all done, we will need to rest again. This leaves us with three days.

Day 7: We pop over to the swamp and grab the dirt on Khaga, then confront her and the Shadow Druids. I like keeping her alive so I can listen to Halsin yell at her when he's back. Next, we go back into the goblin camp and either begin the slow process of purging the place to fully free Halsin, or we tell Minthara about the grove. I like telling Minthara, then betraying her when she arrives so all the tieflings get to participate in defending the grove (you can KO her here to allow for Act 2 recruitment). An Elixir of Vigilance, Haste potions and Dimension Door scrolls will help focus down the spiders before they can hop the gates. I managed the battle with no casualties on Balanced difficulty. Telling Minthara means we have to rest again for progression. 2 days remain.

Day 8: We save the grove, Halsin shows up, we can talk to everyone, and tonight we have a party to attend. We can carefully steal the idol now under the cover of a darkness scroll, arrow or spell. We can run around and do a few more things, like mop up the rest of the goblin camp, and we do, but we want our party! So we rest, give Mol the idol, get lots of conversations, time with our LI, and now we have 1 day left...

Day 9: Auntie Ethel and the Underdark. If she doesn't take all your limited, rest-dependent resources, the minotaurs or the spectator will. Not to mention the hook horrors, the bulette, and the hostile Duergar if you side with the Myconids. And don't forget the Arcane Tower... We also get to meet the only illithid that is better alive than dead. [Sorry, Empy, I hate your face] So we need to rest again before we go to the Grymforge, leaving us out of days...

Finishing the Grymforge and entering the Shadow-Cursed Lands (if we want to get yelled at and wait to do the Crèche until right before the Gauntlet of Shar) could be done in one day if we beelined to Moonrise Towers, but we would miss so much story doing that... and possibly get more npcs we like killed in the process. It wouldn't make sense to me at all to do that.

To finish everything, I think we would need at least 5 more days before even entering Act 2. I know we need a few rests in the Shadow-Cursed Lands to progress follower storylines, too. For my characters, we are usually in Moonrise Towers by late Eleint, meaning 20-30 long rests have been done since day 1 of the game. I did a few extras to 'clear the queue' to ensure I didn't miss story scenes, but still... more than a tenday.

The answer? Longer than 9 days.

So, how do we explain the dates?

It is my thinking that Durge was gone on the Nautiloid for much longer than one day, and that completing the game up to Moonrise Towers takes any reasonable, non-speedrunning player more than nine long rests.

I suspect the intention of the dates is to indicate that Durge was shipped out on the nautiloid a tenday before the first in-game day: the 20th of Eleasis, 1492, meaning they left on the 10th. Since we can technically get to the book on the first day if we speedrun, this seems the most likely explanation.

So when did Durge get attacked?

Yet another debatable timeline point...

Experiment on Cruor begins with a journal entry dated the 3rd of Nightal (irl December). There's no year in the entries. Context tells us this is Orin's log regarding the arrival of her butler and leads us to believe it is written after she attacked Durge. Baldur's Gate 3 starts on the 20th of Eleasis (irl August) in the Year of Three Ships Sailing 1492 DR. Ergo, Orin's log must have been written in 1491 or possibly earlier. This source is the reason most of us place Durge's disappearance no later than the first couple of days in Nightal 1491.

Our supposition is that Orin received her butler after she became Bhaal's Chosen. Dialogue with Sceleritas in-game seems to imply this as well (can't find a clip, sorry).

However, it seems that Durge had Sceleritas with them prior to becoming Bhaal's Chosen, given that the obsequious imp was present during the events of Blood in Baldur's Gate, which took place in 1477.

Torlin Silvershield became Bhaal's Chosen around 1482, following the Murder Lord's resurrection (when the last two of the original Bhaalspawn conceived while Bhaal was trapped in a mortal form were slain). Thayans snatched Silvershield and turned him into a wight sometime after that.

While many other gods have multiple chosen at the same time, Bhaal doesn't seem to do that. Orin had to challenge or in some other way defeat Durge in order to become the new Chosen. Thus, Durge probably wasn't the Chosen at the time of Blood in Baldur's Gate. They likely assumed the mantle in 1482 or later. And yet, Sceleritas was with them.

It is possible that Durge is just special, being Bhaal's favored offspring, and was given their butler before becoming the Chosen.

I went down this particular rabbit hole for devil's advocating the option of invalidating before Nightal 1491 as the time of disappearance. Not to fit any particular headcanon. It just occurred to me. It's possible that Orin might have received her butler when she became a contender for Chosen, not immediately following nonconsensually lobotomizing her bloodkin. This could mean that Durge may have been gone for a much longer or a much shorter period of time.

But what about the line: mind-mangled bloodkin?

Doesn't that prove the journal came after?

Only if you want it to. Orin greatly disapproves of Durge. She could easily have considered them mentally unsound prior to the attack. Because of the way the rest of the journal is worded, it's easy to assume she's already the Chosen at this point, but she doesn't necessarily have to be. She could be postulating on the future. For that reason, if someone wants to think Durge hasn't been gone as long as most of the fandom agrees they were, there's no definitive in-game proof that they're wrong.

Anyhoo... there's wiggle room even in-canon if y'all want your Durges to have only been missing for a few months, instead of nearly the full gestational period of a fetus.

[litgarchive]

It's at least December 12 everywhere in the world. Now what?

An LITG Archive Update

To preface, the original seasons are still playable at the moment if your auto-update is turned off. (I can confirm; I can still play on my Android phone.) I've heard (but have not tried) it's possible to play using older mods as well. Overall, this is good news!

However, no one is sure how long this would be viable, given that you do still need to connect to the Internet to play them. And, how long would Fusebox allow that from their end?

Well, I'm not putting this project on hold. And the fact that the seasons are still playable? A good time to collect more records. (IIRC, I don't have a Season 3 playthrough with Seb as the best friend yet. Please hook your girl up with any link whatsoever.)

What I'm doing and what are the goalposts moving forward, all under the cut!

Originally, I was going to do Season 3 first (as you might have seen from the demo), but I did realize that we'd likely lose more content from Season 2, given it's the longest and has most extensive branching compared to the other two seasons.

So, what am I doing now?

I've mapped out all the choices for Season 2 Day 1 Part 1. I will start transcription. If there are any missing choices, I will create a separate post requesting assistance (like I did before).

Season 3 transcription of a recorded Harry route is being continued by lovely people on their free time. They are currently doing Day 4 Part 1.

Any particular timeline when you'll be able to release a playable Season 2 (or any other season)?

What I can say is it won't be up for a while unless there will be more volunteers helping me transcribe seasons using a particular formatting and process. This is the most time-consuming part.

For a general idea, it took me almost 6 hours to transcribe the part for the demo using 2 recorded playthroughs by @queen-of-boops and by @mrsbsmooth. I broke up the scenes and added in some code/notes as I transcribed. Then I had a few more hours tweaking the transcript into ink, breaking it up a bit more so it won't flood the screen as much UI-wise, installing the UI framework, and testing it.

Granted, since I have brushed up on ink and have done base stuff for the demo, it shouldn't take me too long to code the full game once I've done all the non-coding related tasks.

Why not release it in chapters?

Honestly because I'm not a programmer, I have massive technical debt, and I could do that, but honestly I'm not very comfortable with doing that unless I at least map out all the choices first. I want to avoid missing variables which may, in turn, break everything else.

You might be surprised with the scenes we're still discovering as we repeat the playthroughs. We've got aliens, Islanders checking Bobby's reaction to Rocco possibly stealing you away from him, Ciaran being turned on by a belch, and Kassam actually considering you as a dateable prospect despite not being interested in you in the first place, etc. Honestly wild.

So, now what?

I will be posting an update once a week until all three seasons are completed. I'll post recording requests when needed. (Thank you to everyone who has shared their records so far, I could kiss you all. It's so lovely seeing our community band together like this.)

We can only hope Fusebox publishes the remastered versions soon (if at all) so people (like me) can play their comfort routes or just play some of the best seasons they had put out into the world.

So, yeah.

Much love before it's December 13 from my side of the world.

💕 Pine

[toaarcan]

Arcan Grumbles About Mecha Sally, Part 1: The Wrong Protagonists

Alright I've had this gripe bubbling away in my head for a while (Actually it's part of a larger gripe but I'm trying to avoid devoting too much time to griping about things), so here goes.

Archie Sonic's Mecha Sally saga has the wrong protagonists.

Let's take the premise of the arc in isolation for a moment: Sally Acorn, leader of the Freedom Fighters, is turned into a robotic minion of Dr. Eggman, and everyone else has to try and get her back.

Who, then, should be the characters who get the most focus in this story? Well, obviously Sally's closest friends, and those who would have the most angst about it, right?

Sonic is currently Sally's boyfriend, and he's the main character of the book, so he kinda has to be there regardless of that, even if he's contractually obligated to care significantly less than he should, thanks SEGA. Way to make the comic worse in the name of Brand Identity, where the fuck were you when Penders was here?

But then the list of characters I'd want to give the most focus to in this situation is this: Bunnie, Antoine, Nicole, and Elias.

None of whom are actually properly involved in the published arc after Issue 235.

Bunnie is a really obvious pick. She's Sally's best friend, the two have been all but inseparable since like Day 3, and Bunnie is the powerhouse of the team, of course she should be there. Even from a pure spectacle perspective, Bunnie vs. Mecha Sally should be a good battle, we've seen that Flynn can write a good fight scene with Bunnie on more than one occasion, so hey, let them go at it and it'll be both an entertaining fight and an emotionally fraught scene.

So what does Bunnie do in the actual story? She gets accidentally depowered by a wizard, forgets that she's been depowered and thus becomes the only character in the entire book to outright lose to weaponised Mecha Sally, watches her husband explode, and then runs away to go and get turned back into a cyborg by her Eggman-serving Lost Causer uncle.

Antoine, then. Antoine used to be in love with Sally, and while that's far behind him now, he was also originally meant to be her bodyguard. He must have some extremely complex feelings about what's going on, maybe he even feels like he failed her, like his original task of putting his life on the line to protect her fell by the wayside, and thus when he could have saved her by taking a bullet for her, he wasn't even there. He could, and probably should, have a massive amount of survivor's guilt, feeling that this whole crisis only happened because he didn't do his job.

So, how does he fare in the book? He gets Geoff found guilty of his treachery, only for that to be rendered immediately futile by Naugus. He tells Bunnie that she's strong without being a cyborg, which immediately turns out to be not true. He then sacrifices himself to save Elias, and while more could've been done with this if it was later in the story, he'd got more focus, and he viewed it as an atonement for his not being there to protect Sally, then it could've been really poignant, but it comes super-early in proceedings, and it's framed as a culmination of Antoine's growth from being a coward, an arc across the wider book that ended years ago, than it was as part of the current proceedings. He spends the rest of the arc in a coma, and never wakes up before the reboot.

And, bear in mind, according to Lost Hedgehog Tales, this was supposed to be his death. He was going to be killed off here, and they only changed their minds because of negative online reactions to how bleak the story had been since Issue 225. Either way, it's still a wrap on Antoine, written out of the story completely before it's even finished its opening act.

Nicole, then. Nicole has by far the most reasons to be a main character here. Not only is she Sally's other best friend, but her feelings probably run deeper than that (Even before it was fully intended, Sallicole still had better chemistry than like 90% of the other pairings in the book, I read Stargazing, you can't fool me), and a big part of the last major arc was Sally freeing Nicole from the Iron Queen's control, an event that's still relevant at this point in the comic. The most fulfilling conclusion to that subplot is to have Nicole be part of the protagonist group, actively trying to return the favour and free Sally from Eggman. It's so damn obvious!

And there's no reason to not do it either. Eggman has found a way to protect Mecha Sally from being hacked, so Nicole can't just end the story in Issue 236, they have to actually capture her and get the Power Ring Matrix turned off before Nicole can do her thing. Likewise, Nicole has no reason to stay at home, she's been exiled from the city, so why not join the quest to save the person she cares about more than anyone else? Oh, her handheld form was destroyed? Make a new one. Or make a body out of nanites, we've seen that the nanites don't lose cohesion outside of the city, because Rotor can take his nanite armour to Artika without it immediately dissolving. She has every reason to be there and no reason not to be.

So what does she do in the book? She goes into an angst coma, hashes things out with Mina, makes some natty uniforms for the Secret Freedom Fighters, and then gets unexiled because Naugus is a failure. That's it. She never leaves Freedom HQ or Mobotropolis for the entire storyline.

Finally, Elias. Elias isn't a slouch, he's plenty capable of being a badass on his own. His sister has been enslaved and he just so happened to lose his position as king on the same day. Much like Nicole, there's no reason for him to not go after her and try to save her. Plus, Elias going into open combat with Eggman would be an opportunity to have an actual confrontation between the leaders of these warring factions, even if Elias isn't currently in charge of the Republic of Acorn. And it would be another point of contrast between him and his father: Max basically only left Knothole for glad-handing tours of the kingdom and was an asshole to his family, so here's Elias going out and fighting for his people, protecting them from Eggman's attacks, and moving heaven and earth to save his sister. And it would be much more satisfying for Elias to win back the support that Naugus stole from him through heroism rather than simply undoing Naugus' mind control by way of "Naugus had a headache."

So... the actual book, then? Elias basically retires, avoids being assassinated twice, the first time because Eggman just gives up, the second time because Mecha Sally doesn't know what a back door is, and then he becomes a secret agent and spends pretty much all his time trying to get his throne back. He ends up tied far more to the political subplot revolving around the crown, which is a giant bugbear all of its own, so that's a gripe for another day.

What we get instead of the above group of characters, who really should be the ones saving Sally, are the SEGA trio of Sonic, Tails and Amy.

As I said above, Sonic should be there, and he also has to be there, but he can't carry a story that needs to be emotionally harrowing at this point in the comic. SEGA are already creeping in and trying to dumb him down to the "COOL WHOA YEAH" flat character he became in their games. He's not allowed to love, he's not allowed to cry, he's not allowed to lose. They're peeling the soul out of the character and this is the worst possible time for that to happen, because it takes all the tension out of the story. It's hard to feel the alleged direness of the situation when the literal main protagonist is going "Hey guys, let's have a contest to see who can break the most robots!" and saying "Ah well, we'll get her next time!" as he stands in place and watches Mecha Sally fly away for the third time in a row.

Tails could be a resonant character for this story, but he just... kinda isn't. He and Sally have long had a surrogate familial bond, but it's been largely unexplored for a long time now, and has fallen almost completely by the wayside since Amadeus and Rosemary came back. Tails as a character kinda got left in the lurch by the comics, the Great Harmony was partially done for him, by a machine, while he was asleep, and then Flynn said that he lost all of his powers except flight off-panel. How he feels about the Love Triangle Pileup is pretty much entirely glossed over. Any weight that could be applied to him finally getting his parents back, only to find that they've become assholes that are enamoured with the politics of a planet that imprisoned them for the better part of a decade due to guilt by association, and care more about advancing their agenda and being dicks to his friends than they do about him is stymied by SEGA banning him from acknowledging that they're his parents.

And the Mecha Sally arc didn't really change that for him. He's just there. This Tails at least knows how to throw a damn punch, unlike the way the games were using him at the time, but he's not exactly setting the world on fire. He's just... present.

What would've been cool is if Tails' main role in this story was being the one to finally build a Deroboticizer. He's the one that finally figures out how to undo Eggman's greatest weapon of enslavement. Let his technological skills be used for more than repairing a plane and building a vaguely uncanny robot dog.

And Amy... I feel like Issue 239 really wants us to buy that Amy and Sally are now close friends, but the comic hasn't done nearly enough legwork before this point to actually sell that. I buy that they're friends. I don't buy that they're best friends, and the result is that her focal scenes feel like a store-brand substitute for what we could've had with Bunnie or Nicole present.

Besides that, Amy still faces the same "Emotional range constrained by SEGA" problems as Sonic and Tails, both to a lesser and greater extent than they do. Lesser, because SEGA has always allowed Amy to be more emotional than either of her teammates (I wonder why...), so she still gets to motivate Sonic by getting angry, which is a good scene for her. Greater, because at the time, the most recent main series game was Sonic Generations, so SEGA is still presenting Amy as a character who considers Sonic more important than breathing. We're a long way out from them trying to unfuck her character still, and that means that when Amy has to have her Mandatory Flirting With Sonic Quota moments, she's... flirting with a guy who is actively fighting to save his brainwashed girlfriend.

And that's not a criticism of Amy herself, I know people get rather defensive about modern Amy, so I'm making it clear that I'm not saying that Amy is a bad character because of this. Rather, I consider the presence of the Obligatory Reminder That Amy Loves Sonic moments to be a disservice to Amy's character. She should have the emotional intelligence to know that this is not the time. It turns her previous decision that she's okay to wait for Sonic to reciprocate her affections into "Sally has been out of the picture for 0.5 picoseconds, time to get me some Sonic!"

And the thing is, it didn't need to be this way. Ian Flynn has confirmed that making Sonic, Tails, and Amy the sole main characters of the comic for the majority of the Mecha Sally arc was his decision and his decision alone. He chose this. He wanted them to be in the spotlight for a while because the previous few arcs had put more attention on Sally, Bunnie, Rotor, and Nicole. And that's fine, that makes sense, if you're writing a long-running story with multiple smaller arcs and a large ensemble cast, it makes sense to shuffle which of of that cast are the foremost characters from arc to arc. But "Sally gets roboticized and everyone has to save her" was not the arc to do that with.

Other stories could be told with the SEGA trio, this one needed Archie characters in the limelight to sell the weight and the stakes, and it needed the characters who were closest to Sally to achieve the maximum emotional resonance that a story this fraught should have.

It could've been great. As it stands... it's easily the nadir of Flynn's run on the book, and for a bunch more reasons besides this one. I'll cover those another time, for now this is about as much grumbling as I'm willing to do, but I'll certainly come back to "Arcan Grumbles About Mecha Sally" or whatever eventually.

[lumine-no-hikari]

Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #242

I got to bed relatively on time last night. I still woke up groggy as heck, because that is the nature of sleep deprivation injuries; it'll be at least a week or two before my brain fully recovers; such is the nature of the brain cleaning cycle. Oh well.

Nonetheless, I had a lot of fun at work today! There was, along with Mi, Ma, and I, another lady named Tr, and the whole day was filled with laughter and delightful banter as we did our various tasks; it was wonderful!

I'm always amazed at how quickly the time passes while I'm there. I'm always busy, always moving from one task to the next, always moving around, so the four hours pass by in a flash, and I'm always just a little sad when it's time to go home.

They asked me to make muffins again today, and with the practice I got from my first time doing it, I was a lot better at it this time! I even found a more efficient way of filling and leveling off the muffin scoop, and so I was able to fill the muffin tin a lot more quickly than last time, and with far more consistency! The muffin batter was then baked. Here they are in the giant walk-in oven; it's not a great picture, I know, but I couldn't really do anything about the glare...

...And here are the results of my handiwork:

...Aren't they beautiful? Someone's gonna go home with a box of these, and that makes me really happy!

I also put muffins that were previously baked into boxes. Each of these shelves have 6 boxes that contain 4 muffins each. And I filled even more shelves than these today:

...We have them in so many different flavors! We've got pistachio, chocolate, pumpkin, banana-nut, apple cinnamon, corn, and so many more. The ones I baked were cranberry muffins. They're not my favorite, but they're someone's favorite, and that makes me feel really glad.

I like this job. I like the repetitive certainty of the routine tasks. I like the diligence and precision of a job well done. I like knowing that my manager is delighted to watch me learn, and is proud of the efficiency and conscientiousness with which I work. I like knowing that I will only continue to improve. I like knowing that I am working with others towards a shared purpose. I like knowing that I am capable of improving the processes that are used in service to that purpose. And I like knowing that someone is gonna go home with a box of delicious things that were wrought from my own hands.

J requested that I get sandwich supplies on the way home, so I did. I got deli sliced chicken, roast beef, genoa salami, and cheese, along with a loaf of seeded rye bread. With these, I made a sandwich!!! And I put truffle mayo on it, because why not!

Either it was a sandwich of epic awesomeness, or I was just hungry. Either way, it was awesome and I loved it!! I wish I could make one for you!

Hey, Sephiroth? What kind of sandwiches do you like, anyway? What kind of toppings and dressings do you like to put on them? I wonder...

In any case, we went to a birthday party shortly after that. Our friend Mer's birthday was today, and so she decided to gather up a bunch of her friends to eat tasty snacks and play board games! It's nice to know that J and I are on the list of people she considers friends! We played a card game called Boss Monster; basically you're the monster ruler of your very own dungeon that you build out of cards that represent rooms! I ended up getting an entity called, uh... Seducia... I guess. Hahahaha!

But I didn't really have much interest in killing adventurers or winning the game. I just built a party dungeon. I had a ballroom, and a menagerie of rescued critters, and a room that makes people silly, a room with an all-seeing eye, and a room with a lich dragon who is basically an interior designer! I had a cleric come by to try to kill me, because presumably, he thought my entity was too sexy to live (typical...), but he didn't succeed.

I like to think that instead of dying in my "dungeon", he simply changed his mind and decided that trying to kill me is silly, so instead he went to the ballroom and got a sandwich! Sandwiches are sensible. Violence is not. And then I like to think that he decided my dungeon is so awesome that he didn't wanna go home. Because the outside world is a cold and terrible place devoid of sandwiches!!! Or at least, devoid of sandwiches that are as good as the ones I can make!!! Ahahahaha~!!

The whole game was very silly, but fun. I was super sleepy at the end of it, though, so I sat in a recliner for the rest of the evening. I ended up falling asleep in it, even though I didn't mean to. I'm still pretty groggy, even after a number of hours of being home. Suppose I should at least try to go to bed relatively on time...

...In the spirit of that, I guess I'll end today's letter here.

Hey, Sephiroth? Are you staying safe where you are? If you're not, please try a little harder, okay? I don't want to have to endure your absence. I'm not sure I'd be capable of withstanding such a thing.

I love you. And I'll write again tomorrow.

Your friend, Lumine

[clarafyer]

This is gonna be a long vent post so uh yeah

Cw: Detailed description of a shutdown/meltdown

So a few hours ago during the last period of school I had a big shutdown that turned into a meltdown the second the dean asked "Are you done with your work?" (I do my English mainly in the dean's office since she helps 504 kids and my classmates are horrible in English)

Our last unit of the year is a podcast unit. I finally finished the first recording assignment the other day, one that was like 2 weeks late but only a few days late with my 200% time accommodation, and now I have one thing to do. One thing out of all of my classes at the moment. It's another podcast, and is normally due tomorrow. We've had 2 weeks so far to work on it and I haven't even finished the planning sheet because EVERY TIME I LOOK AT THE FUCKING DOCUMENT I JUST SHUT DOWN AND SIT THERE FOR THE ENTIRE HOUR.

The past few days, it's made me cry silently and unmoving in my seat. The dean didn't notice until today, and the shut down turned into a melt down right when she didn't even ask if I was okay, she asked if I finished my work. I was hyperventilating and trying my best to be as quiet as I could as to not be a burden upon the rest of the front office area. I wanted to punch the chromebook, to scream at the top of my lungs, to tear my hair out. But no, I just sat there hyperventilating and sniffling, hunched over the table, apologizing for no reason.

Well, I was apologizing for being a loud mess and not listening to her on how I could write the introduction because naming Princess Diana's charities in the very introduction would be way too obvious (the podcast is Imagined Life, you go through the life of a celebrity, describing it in the second person and only revealing who it is at the end)

I still have the same straight As that I've had all year, but if I don't finish this fucking unit that I hate so much, then my English grade is gonna drop so low because each podcast project is almost 100 points each and is put into the test category on Skyward (tests are worth 30-something% of the full grade.) I don't want to do this unit, I hate it so much and I can't muster up anything to progress on it.

When she would tell me to type it up, I could barely even do the function, I wasn't able to do any of the tasks I had to do the entire period. All I could do was just reach my hand out to the keyboard and then just pull it right back to my face.

I felt so fucking guilty and ashamed for not doing anything, I know I was rendered useless and had to cope and get away from the problem, but I felt like I couldn't do that, I couldn't do that, otherwise I'd be lazy and stubborn and a cry-baby and just having a big temper tantrum.

I remember it so vividly and I think that was one of the worst I've ever had.

I hate this

I hate being like this

I hate masking

I hate unmasking too

What went wrong this year? I thought I was doing great, only a few late assignments before I got my 504, so few meltdowns compared to the last few years, I finally started figuring out why my brain is how it is

Oh

That was where it went wrong. I started advocating for an autism diagnosis and when I got evaluated by the school, they said I missed the communication category and legally didn't qualify for autism-related accommodations. Sure, they said I still was totally likely to be medically diagnosed positive, but all the doubt, all the questioning, all the impostor syndrome, all of EVERYTHING is where this year went wrong.

I don't want to write anymore so if you read all of this, thank you. I don't care if anyone interacts or not, but I really needed to vent and connect with the rest of the autistic community. I can't wait for this school year to be over.

[shiobookmark]

The Ithaca Saga - just rambling, no point

Okay I've been critical of this musical, there are a lot of songs that feel like filler, just don't hit the mark or are so caught up in 'explaining the plot' that they forget to be songs. But every song in this last arc is fantastic and I haven't stopped crying. (Part of that is the lull after the stress of Christmas and forgetting to take my meds for about two days but WHATEVER- I've taken them now it's fine) Penelope is a particular standout. We've never heard from her in person before, and she only has two songs, but we see the strength of her. She also sounds older, far from a damsel 'only' waiting. This is a woman who has fought to be where she is, and it takes a final test before she's willing to lay down those weapons. So many so-called 'feminist' retellings miss the strength that women had, even restricted. 'Waiting' in the Epic musical is not a passive task, it takes strength to resist the expectations of society and to outwit over a hundred men who don't see you as an equal. Women in myth are never equal to the men, and a marriage and a rape amount to the same result. The suitors could force the issue and in the final arc they resolve to do just that. Penelope must have been so clever, both a gracious host and a cunning adversary, to have held them off so long. I'm so thankful the musical gives her her due. She's the hero of this part of the saga and it shows. And then here comes her husband, she recognises him as changed, even asks him what he has done in order to come home. She doesn't blindly accept, she doesn't dive in without looking first. She'll love Odysseus no matter how he's changed, no matter what he's done. But she's clever, and the gods have been playing games so long she needs to be certain, which is why she asks about the wedding bed. All this is from Homer, I believe. Not much has been changed except the minor detail that Odysseus actually won the challenge Penelope set before slaughtering the suitors. But I am wrecked because I've read Madeline Miller's Circe and while this Odysseus is very different (I actually took issue with his characterisation in Epic because someone so kind and fair would never have survived the Trojan war or come up with the Horse gambit) I still can't help but think about how she described how trauma destroyed Odysseus. In Circe, Odysseus returns home a changed man. He was too used to being the cleverest of the Greeks, and regardless of the truth, he believed it. So no one could reason with him or talk him out of it when he saw conspiracy and betrayal everywhere. How he commanded his son Telemachus to have the bed slaves of the suitors scrub the floors clean of their blood, then butcher them. (Another detail I think is in the original.) And Telemachus thought to spare them pain by hanging them instead, inadvertently prolonging their deaths and traumatising himself for life. And his father called him a coward for not killing the suitors himself, for not being a man. Softly, gently, with venom. And Penelope still at her loom, pleading patience, because she never stopped waiting. And eventually Odysseus is killed by his unknown son by Circe, because he never let go of war or suspicion. And I need about a million fanfictions right now to assure me that that's not going to be the case with this Odysseus, because Madeline Miller has ruined me forever with that compelling and tragic story. Go read Circe, it's fantastic. Odysseus has returned home, and part of him is still the man he was, but he's also irrevocably changed and without the driving force of 'to see my son and wife' what else is left of him?