#but yeah i search up stuff sometimes so i have . Knowledge

[nothorses]

Story about what zero trans unity does to a mother fucker:

I remade my tumblr account like 6 months ago and only follow friends so far and one of the friends unknowingly shares a lot of stuff with transandrophobic views shoved in... actually I think they might know but.. eugh..

I've also been have a lot of man guilt recently? After seeing post after post about men not knowing the female experience and it's sus if you see trans men together in public with no trans women with them,, I've started feeling guilty over relating to trans women's posts about transness - especially one about how when trans women don't pass they're not treated like men, they're treated like their gender is "faggot". I do pass as a man, but I am not treated like the men around me are. Whenever a trans woman talks about how people treat her in boy mode I swear I have stories that line up with those experiences to a T ... joke unintended.

So I've been feeling like shit and then I remembered that your blog exists and genderkoolaid's blog exists and that uhh fuckinnn that one with wolf in the name,, and I've been reading through your blog and just. Joy. I am overfilled with joy. You do touch on a lot of issues are saddening, but it still fills me with a sense of joy that people are actually discussing it. The only trans man related stuff I saw before was about how we can't really be trusted, with the odd "trans men are men" added in there sometimes. But, so, yeah. Your blog reminds me that I belong and that is nice.

I am kinda isolated right now so I have no access to irl queer community, but once I am able to leave I am on the search for trans unity irl! Thank you for existing!

I'm sorry to hear you've been dealing with that! You're definitely not alone in those feelings or experiences; that's exactly why I started talking about this stuff in the first place, and I still encounter quite a bit of it.

This isn't a new conversation by any means, and I'm so glad to see more and more people engaging in it in more serious and thoughtful ways than I have any knowledge of happening before. This corner of the internet is small, but I've been hearing about and seeing real-world change from it, and that's incredibly encouraging. I hope it keeps up. I'm so excited for us!

Thank you for reaching out with your gratitude, it's really appreciated. 💙 And thanks @genderkoolaid for being fantastic as well :)

[gin-juice-tonic]

I've been thinking a lot about gender identity and stuff lately, but to my shame I’m not the most educated person when it comes to lgbt related stuff. Every time I try to search it to learn more I end up freaking out and clearing my browsing history because of the feeling of being watched. I know I’m being unreasonable, but it’s stronger than me. I don’t have anyone to ask about this kind of stuff. Everyone around me is negative about lgbt, I grew up among this negativity. I’m afraid to ask my online friends because I don’t want to seem ignorant or stupid. What have I decided to do? Send an anonymous ask to a stranger about my concerns (sorry about that), whose blog helped me to accept the fact that I might not be who I though I was at the first place. It feels more safe. Back to the point.

As a teen I used she/they pronouns and a different gender-neutral name online for years. I still do it as an adult and now I realise that “she” was more like a compromise for me because it was what I used to be referred as for my whole life, but didn’t feel quite comfortable with. So it’s they/them for me, I guess. Okay. I’ve always preferred to not be related to any gender, but now I see that there’s more to it. I might be a nonbinary, but what if I’m actually an agender? I also consider the possibility of being a genderfluid because one moment I wear a dress and think that it looks good, and the other moment I cry in front of a mirror because of the idea of wearing it. So yeah, it depends on my mood. I don’t know how it works. I’m just so confused. The only thing I know that I’m not comfortable with being referred to as a female anymore. I’ve never really been.

Admittedly, as someone who is binary trans, I do not have a lot of knowledge in this area. I do know what it’s like to not know what you’re “supposed to be” though. And I know it can be frustrating and scary to be lost in trying to figure out your own identity. 

I asked some of my friends, who are nonbinary and genderfluid themselves, and the first thing we all have to say is you should allow yourself more kindness. I am sorry that you grew up around so much negativity. But I want you to know that it’s both okay to feel afraid but also okay to not know everything. If a friend is going to treat you badly for asking questions, they’re not a very good friend. 

One of my friends says the part you said about “making compromises” resonated a lot with them a lot, so you aren’t alone there. As for how you feel in a dress, clothes do not equal gender. You can like how you look in a dress without any of it having to do with girl-ishness. I suggest you try to think about why you like it when you do, and why you don’t when you don’t. My friends also suggested trying other clothes you can express yourself with. Think about why you like them, or why you don’t like them. (Of course, sometimes the answer has nothing to do with gender. I like athletic clothing because they make me look sporty, which is a neutral thing. But it’s good to know what parts aren’t related to gender at all too.) That extends beyond clothes too, any part of your presentation that you think you can play with without getting yourself into danger, you should. 

It’s tempting to feel like you have to scramble to figure out a label. Especially when advice and other people you can talk to can feel sort of “grouped” under them. And there’s a lot of knowledge to be gained that way for sure. But there’s a lot of knowledge to be gained just in figuring out what you do and don’t like. What makes you feel bad, what makes you feel at ease, what makes you super excited. You‘ve got it nailed down that you don’t like being called a female, that’s not a bad start! 

If your friends are people you think are good and kind, I would suggest reaching out to them so that you can explore things a little more with them, considering they know you better than I would. I know it's scary, but there's nothing wrong with not knowing things, and I hope they'd be aware of that too. And even if you call yourself something now and explore more into it, there's no harm if in the future it doesn't fit so good. There's no wrong way to be a gender, and more importantly there's no wrong way to be you.

[skeletoninthemelonland]

hey starbs! I was wondering something, I know you are studying biolgy in uni and as someone who wants to be a biolgist but has been told im too "artistic and creative" to spend my life working with such precise things. I know you are also and artist, obviously, how has it been for you that you are a creative person, yet working with a course that is so strict to what it is (like not incudlign the different types of biolgist, like how you work there you rcant do what you want like you could with art or writing etc)

do you have any advice on how to reach for this goal or how youve felt just wanting to be a biolgist? im struggling alot with future stuff and it would be nice to hear from a fellow artist. (keep up the great work)

I'll be honest and say that studying Biology was a bit of a rushed decision (?)

I had no idea what I truly wanted to do while studying for the entrance exam. I knew I enjoyed different subjects and could work flexibly, but depending on the path I took, things would become either enjoyable or difficult for me. Biology has always been a subject I loved as a kid, but never something I was constantly interacting with growing up. With art that was different. I was definitely more passionate and skilled at art than at anything else.

I would have choosed to work with art, if only I had scored higher in the entrance exam and if only it was easy to make art for a living. Still, I don't regret choosing to study Biology.

It was a little discouraging in the beginning with how little I knew about the subject. Some students had far more knowledge than I ever had growing up. Some of them know exactly how a biology major will help them in the future. There were also people like me who had no idea what they wanted to do, but were willing to learn.

Turns out that Biology is one of the least precise things you could ever work with. Sciences in general is a subject that functions on uncertainty, and is what brings people forward to gather more information. My Plant Anatomy teacher often says "Mas é isso né gente, as plantas não lêem livros" (Which can be translated to "But yeah, plants don't read books"), because very often you'll find exceptions and unexplainable occurances everywhere (In this case, students are taught not to make assumptions about certain morphological characteristics that are present in plants... but not in all of them).

Artistic and creative are traits that are incredibly helpful and often necessary as skills. In a more literal approach, it might help you understand illustrated examples and "train your eye" for the tiniest details. Using your creativity as a tool to learn will immediately make things easier for you. I can't always draw and paint like I used to, but I can say that "motor proteins travelling along microtubules look like tiny people going for a walk :D" and never forget the information.

Being creative helps you make analogies with already existing information, so it's easier to retain it. I could also say "motor proteins travelling along microtubules remind me of Michael Afton walking down the sidewalk :D" and it's even easier to remember! Play with the information like it's a toy. If you can explain it to a 5 year old, that's because you learned.

But of course, there will always be classes that are more difficult than others. Mathematics will always be that one for me. You can't escape the challenging parts ^^'

Overall, it really depends on the person. It might work for me, and it might not work for you. The key is to explore and experiment on your own pace. Answers will come to you if you keep searching for them.

My best advice (in any major you're choosing), which will likely save your time, energy and sanity, is to find people like you. Not necessarily people who share similar interests as you, but people that you can count on and share your struggles — and they'll sometimes share their own. Befriending people often keeps you grounded and less anxious about how you'll perceive yourself and the future. It's a win-win interaction. Everyone is struggling, so we'll help each other out.

Remember it's okay to not know things right away. Remember it's okay that you're not as skilled as x person. Remember it's okay to be kind to yourself.

I could be saying all of this, but every day there's a huge effort to remind myself to take it slow. Reality oftens becomes skewed when we don't give ourselves a break.

I hope I helped you somehow, with the little to no experience I've had over the past few months. Wishing you and any other person reading this and who's in a similar situation good luck.

-----

One last advice.

Please, SLEEP!

SLEEP. SLEEP. SLEEP.

Don't even think about staying up late. SLEEP. Eat healthy whenever you can. Carry a banana with you, they have potassium — which is fucking great for your organism !!!

CARRY WATER. EVERYWHERE. TAKE 💧💧💧💦💦💦💦💧💧💦💦

How is anyone supposed to make good decisions while exhausted, grumpy, dehydrated, overwhelmed and hungry? THERE IS NO WAY. TREAT YOURSELF WITH CARE !!!! NOOOWWWW

[writers-wrongs]

I'm begging please yandere gotham oswald cobblepot with a male readers hc

For a queer character there is surprising lack of male reader stuff with him

i think thats bc you can just pretend youre eddie for the experience lmao. but yeah, we need more ozzie content. btw, this is only gonna cover season oneish, mostly bc this man goes through so much and i cant possibly cover it all in one post

yandere!gotham!penguin x male!reader

-you work at fish's club as a waiter, so hes known you for a while. youre one of the only people who treats him with any kindness, the only others being his mother and (sometimes) fish, so he spends most of his free time with you

-he falls for you hard and fast, but he takes a while to recognize it as love. hes been bullied all his life, so he assumes that his feelings for you are just friendship. of course, his mother recognizes her son is in love and gives him a little talk (she assumes its a woman, but her hearts in the right place). once he knows hes in love, he does absolutely nothing with that knowledge

-dont get me wrong, he utterly adores you. youre on his mind constantly. he just doesnt feel like hes important enough to have you yet. why would you ever want a pathetic little umbrella boy? so he stays friends with you, and he starts planning. if he doesnt deserve you now, he'll have to work to earn you

-then the whole "fish tries to have him killed for betraying her" thing happens. and up until he takes over her club, theres not much he can do about you. hes moreso focused on survival at the moment. but when he takes the club, he keeps you around and promotes you to co-owner

-this man spoils you constantly. you want a new suit? he gets you a personal tailor. you say you like a color? the club is covered in it within the week. you say you dont like someone? theyre found dead the next day, and zsasz has a new tally on his arm. anything you want, he takes to the extreme

-aaand now hes fighting for his life again. my poor boy, hes suffered more than jesus and weve only just finished season one. hes now the self-proclaimed king of gotham, and his ego is through the roof. his first act as king? shows up at your doorstep with a bouquet of purple roses and begs you to be his

-if you accept his love, you rule gotham by his side. directly by his side. you two share the throne in the most physical interpretation of the phrase, this man is so clingy. youre never out of his sight for more than an hour, and if you are, all of his men start searching the city for you. oswald practically worships you. to the gotham underworld, youre known as his better half. if someone can convince you to let them live, oswald will listen because thats what his lovebird wants, and what his lovebird wants, he gets

-if you dont, he does his best not to cry. in front of you, that is. he rushes to his mom and sobs for hours. once he calms down, gotham becomes a dark place. no mercy is shown to anyone who messes up, infighting is almost encouraged, and the only rule of the penguin is that youre not to be hurt. people are allowed to affect your life, though. any partners of yours tragically die, youre constantly put into (controlled) danger, your apartment even gets broken into so you dont feel safe at home. if youre not going to embrace oswald willingly, he'll just frighten you into running into his arms

[dailyfigures]

(not the same anon) i only saw the anime (not the full thing cause i hated it), ill try to keep the points neutral/factual & not let my opinion/bias shine through too much. heres some of the stuff that happens (spoilers obviously): 1. main character, adult man, works as a doctor. one of his patients is 16 year old idol Ai. she is pregnant. mc is obsessed with her throughout the show. when asked by a colleague if he'd hook up with her if given a chance he says yes. 2. a patient of his (i dont know her age, early/mid teens) is in love with him. she dies. 3. the doctor mc is killed. he is 'reincarnated' as Ai's child, while keeping his past memories, along with the teen girl patient i mentioned in (2.), now named ruby. mc is now named aqua. they are twins now. they don't know each others former identities 4. Ai is killed, which further fuels aquas obsession with her (it seems to be romantic since i believe he mentions being in love with her, her being his 'ideal woman' etc) 5. several teenage girls are also in love with him (while his 'reincarnation' is their age, he has the full scope of his past memories, making him at least 30yo in lived experience), while he doesn't seem to reciprocate their feelings (up to the point i watched the show at least), it's not treated as something he's against due to them being teenagers, moreso that he's too preoccupied with searching for Ai's killer. that's about it, im sure theres more in the manga & bits i havent seen, i personally really dislike the show but i'd understand if you were to keep up the figurines as despite those themes no actual incest happens to my knowledge (correct me if wrong or forgot stuff!), some of the designs are pretty i guess

thank you for taking the time to explain it to me anon! i'm sure there's good parts to it since it's so popular but yeah it doesn't sound like it'd be for me personally either.

i do find it hard to judge media like this without having seen it. i'm a big horror fan so i watch a lot of media that features things you should very much Not do irl but that doesn't mean all horror is inherently problematic. sometimes media is just an exploration of something fucked up without explicitly stating "this is Bad!!! Do Not Do!!!!" because they trust the consumer to realise that on their own.

having said that, oshi no ko doesn't sound like a psychological piece that explores the morals of incest and adult-minor relationships to me (from what i understand without having seen/read it! do please correct me if i'm wrong!). it sounds like it's just kinda very weird without challenging those themes much.

again, it's hard to judge that without having consumed it. i think i'll just leave up the oshi no ko posts i have and not add any more. i might have some in the queue so i'll remove those if i remember to. hope everyone is somewhat okay with that decision!

[soso-chan126]

Ahkmenrah x fem! reader "Heimat"

I'm incredibly bored and watched some Night at the museum. Than it just happened that I thought a little bit (is indeed a rare process) and well I thought I could write a little oneshot for the pretty pharao. I couldn't help myself soo yeah. Btw the reader is in this oneshot from the time of the 20th century and to be more specific (is it written that way? idk well if not I am counting on all of you that you're going to tell me if it's right or not) the reader is from the time of the second world war and well there may be some topics that can trigger people. So I will put a trigger warning at the beginning. But well maybe not I'm not sure what I will include and so on and I also don't know how I make the reader so yeah... I will just go with the flow and write for my hearts content (not sure if I can put it that way). So before the beginning I write a quick definition for the word "Heimat". Ouhh and my little to long author notes are those little mini textes.

Heimat (german): "a place, where someone was born and grew up or is there long enough to have a feeling of being at home (is mostly a word for a place (and sometimes someone) that (or who) someone has a very special connection to)

translated out of the "Duden" can't say it's the right translation to the definition but well if someone of you has a better definition that's in english I'll gladly swap that with this one if you don't mind.

Well let's go then! ahh... btw I write about a female reader so yeah... if you want another one with gender neutral or a male reader ask right away and then I'll write it as soon as I can! I am not a native speaker so well it certainly has some errors and I'll correct them if you tell me where some are. Thanks and let's go!

TW: mentions of the holocaust, death, national socialists and some of the other stuff about the 2nd ww and also swearing but only lightly and once if I'm not mistaken

You have been warned. Reading on your own... I forgot the word. Eh... something like concequences ig but I'm not sure. It's way to late for writing tbh. And if you don't want to read the stuff with the 2nd ww then just skip the background. I will mark it for you guys.

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

Everyday I remember my cruel death. I am nothing but a little wax figurine that just resembles my once very much alive self but I still have her memorys. Even though I am only made out of wax and don't even have a real brain. She was a hero for a lot of people even though she was only a little artist that wasn't much known. She lived in nazi germany so she knew what was going on in germany. Even more because one of her friends worked for the terrifying camps. He told her a lot of things proudly and most of them weren't allowed to be told to zivilian people like herself. She took advantage of the knowledge and used it for her art. She showed the terrors of the war of the holocaust of everything.

She also started to try to change the world for the better and so she came into the view of the regime and their corrupted forces. She was able to trick them but well her luck ran out after she helped a spy of the united states. The spy learned a lot of things from her that were cultural differences between the two countries. With her help he was able to keep hidden. To his luck he looked also like a "typical german" probably had ancestors that were german people. However that was a reason why spys of the allies were basically searching for her so that she can also help them. She was bad at denying the need for help of other people. The spys that resided in her humble home also found out that she hid two jewish families in her house.

Europe and germany were her so called "Heimat" she looked up to Stefan Zweig who also saw europe as his "Heimat" or his home. But well his works were forbidden in germany thanks to the national socialists. She was enraged to find out that her favourite author isn't allowed in her home. But she couldn't give a single shit. She still had the books of him that she once bought. She hid them well. They always tried to find something so that they could arrest and torture her. Well she wasn't allowed to draw anymore and that was a problem but she never stopped with helping others out.

Then someday one of her neighbours told her off to the ss. They came into her home and found everything the spy who resided with the young woman and also the jewish families, the forbidden books and her forbidden art studio. Also the books of different languages such as english, french, japanese, italian, spanish and much more. She learned them all and can speak some of them fluently while the others were a little rusty but good enough to communicate decently. They caught her and they also punished her. And their punishment was the reason for her death. She was a strong woman who helped as much people as she could by sending them off to other countries or hiding them and teaching them. The spy was also tortured and died right next her when a bomb of the english army fell onto the building they were in. He apologized to her but she told him that it wasn't his fault and that she decided for herself to walk on this path that was hidden in the darkness without any sight of light. She wanted to bring light into her home, her "Heimat". But she lost it and she pobably never gets it back. Well that's what her dying self thought but that wasn't exactly true.

~End of backstory~

She came back to life and well she is now my humble self who is a good friend of hystorical people like Sacagawea, Theodore Roosevelt and others. My personal favourite of them all is Ahkmenrah. He is a pharao of egypt who is dead like most of us. Makes sense right? And well he kind of is more to me. I certainly don't know what I am for him but he is more than a friend. I think it's enough to say that I have kind of a crush on the handsome egyptian man. Well okay it's a big crush to be honest.

Everytime when I have those nightmares about my death he's there to help me. I'm very thankful to have him. Even though I'm quite sad that I don't know about his feelings for me.

Well my little thoughts about my past and current situation were interrupted by hand that waved in front of my face. I blinked twice and mumbled a little "Wa?", that made him chuckle. "You were very deep into your thoughts today. Is something troubling you?", he asked me somewhat amused but also concerned. I just stared into his eyes and shook my head indicating a "no". He just sighs and asked if I could tell him about some stories that I read. He asked for some fairy tales. So I told him some. Mostly the famous ones like "Snow white", "Rapunzel", "The beauty and the beast" and also "Sleeping Beauty".

At some point he laid down and rested his head on my lap. I stopped reading and stared down on him with wide eyes. He eyed me from his position and asked what's wrong. He wasn't like this before. Never. And this shocked me. "Nothing's wrong. But tell me why are you laying your head on my lap?", I asked with a blush that told the world how embarassed and overworked I was from the whole situation. "I'm simply resting. I was feeling tired." Well he is dead so it was kind of a miracle for me to think that he can feel tired. I just shrugged and returned still a little flustered to reading the current story.

After I finished with the story I glanced down to Ahk who still rested his head on my lap. Surprisingly he kind of fell asleep. I watched his peaceful face and felt the heat returning into my face. I may be out of wax but well I kind of can blush at least at night. Though everyone can kind of. It's cute when I see Teddy blush because of Sacagawea or the other way around. I kind of still wonder how it's possible. But well we talk about a relict that can bring basically everything to life so questioning that kind of stuff can bring a headache to someone and by someone I mean myself.

As I was thinking and staring down on the handsome pharao on my lap the mentioned man was waking up and saw to me. Catching me red-handed as I was watching him sleep. I then registered that he had opened his beautiful brown eyes and well you can guess it. I became something similar to a living tomato. He smiled widely seeing me this flustered and laughed out loud.

"Thank you for guarding my sleep! But I'm sure that the sun will rise very soon." Indeed the sky was getting lighter every minute and it's just a matter of time that we need to be on our places. He sat up but put me to a halt when I wanted to stand up. "Could you answer me one little question about a german word?", he asked looking at the young woman with great interest. "Sure. What is your question?"

"What does "Heimat" mean?" Heimat. I haven't heard that word for long only thought about it. "Well "Heimat" is similar to the english word "home" but some people might say that it has a higher meaning. It's more connected with feelings and it doesn't need to be a place. Sometimes it's a person or a thing." "Hmm can you tell me if my usage of the word is correct?", he asked kind of nervous id I'm putting it right. I just nodded and he took a deep breath. That kind of makes it suspicious. Like if he's going to confess or something. He wouldn't right?

Then he grabbed for my hand and said "(Y/N) my beautiful little desert flower. You are everything to me and my "Heimat" is wherever you are. Eh.. could you tell me how I say in german that you're my "Heimat"?" "Du bist meine Heimat", I answered in a trance like state. "(Y/N). Du bist meine Heimat*" I teared up after he said that. "Du bist auch meine Heimat, Ahk.**" He caressed my cheek and kissed me slowly. It was a cute kiss that showed all his emotions for me and of course I reciprocated it as soon as I was out of my trance.

"I love you", he mumbled lowly while connecting his forehead with mine. "I love you too." He is my "Heimat" and I'm pretty sure he'll always be. Well as long as the tablet and the time are on our side.

What the two lovebirds haven't noticed was that the tablet had little corrosions over it. And that their next adventure is waiting for them.

Well that's it my friend's! It's really late and I'm kind of tired as idk. Especially since it's 3 a.m. And I need to go to school tomorrow like ahhhh! Am I dumb kinda. Do I have to write a class test in math tomorrow? Yes. Yes, I have to. Well that's the reason why I'm going to sleep now. So yeah. Ouh and if I got anything wrong tell me friendly if it's unfriendly I will simply ignore it. I'll make soon a masterlist and link it to this post and the other two as well. And yeah... See ya guys later!

Edited: Here is the masterlist!

Masterlist

Translation: "(Y/N). Du bist meine Heimat." -> "(Y/N). You're my home." * "Du bist auch meine Heimat, Ahk." -> "You're my home as well, Ahk." **

[greatwyrmgold]

Power Is Power

Thinking about two very similar lines from two very different fantasy series.

First, we have Cersei Lannister's "Power is power."

Littlefinger crudely alludes to a certain secret that could ruin the Lannisters and says "Knowledge is power". Cersei responds by ordering her guards to (nearly) kill Littlefinger, then do a series of pointless orders. She follows this up by dropping the line "Power is power" and giving Littlefinger an order.

The message here is simple. To Cersei, power is the power to make others follow your commands, and in particular to threaten or inflict violence on others. She says this to deny that Littlefinger's knowledge could have any power, which is odd when you consider that she had Eddard Stark imprisoned to prevent people from learning that very knowledge.

Yeah, this is one of those scenes where David Benioff and D.B. Weiss (aka D&D) had two of their great actors monologue at each other to fill time and generate pseudo-philosophical quotes that sound good out of context.

To their credit, the nature of power is a running theme in Game of Thrones and its source material, and even if the show doesn't seem to realize Cersei is wrong, she's wrong in an in-character way. Sometimes, D&D do two wrongs that make a right.

Speaking of D&D, though, there's a Dungeons and Dragons webcomic which has a very similar line, under very different circumstances. I am, of course, talking about The Order of the Stick and one of Xykon's best monologues.

You seem to have an interest in power, so let me educate you a little while I search for you. It's sort of this thing I like to do sometimes, especially for learned wizards such as yourself. Power, it isn't something that you put on or take off like a jacket. It's something you just ARE. [...] I used to think spells equaled power, too, back when I was alive. I've learned a lot since then. You know what does equal power? Power. Power equals power. Crazy, huh? But the type of power? Doesn't matter as much as you'd think. It turns out, everything is oddly balanced. Weird, but true. For example: Right now, power takes the form of a +8 racial bonus to Listen skill checks.

The biggest difference between the two scenes is that it's hard to discuss this one without spoiling stuff; Rich Burlew puts these character-thesis-statement monologues at plot-critical junctures, you see. But the next-biggest is that it makes sense in context.

Xykon isn't a master manipulator, and he isn't being written by someone who thinks he is; he's a drama king (complete with crown), bragging about his victory to a wizard who arrogantly thought they could beat him.

Said wizard showed up to Xykon's castle with "a big pile of spells"—somewhere around twice what Xykon had, and with access to a greater variety of spells. In terms of pure, violent firepower, the wizard should have won. But they didn't, because firepower isn't the only kind of power. Sometimes power is listening to your allies' advice. Sometimes power is thinking to prepare magic traps or items ahead of time. Sometimes power is a +8 racial bonus to Listen checks.

(That's Perception for you 5e whippersnappers. Back in my day, there were different skills for hearing invisible wizards and spotting silenced rogues.)

I'd say that's the biggest difference between these two scenes. Cersei has overwhelming violence, rejects all other forms of power, and keeps failing upward until rocks fall on her. The wizard tried to do the same thing, using their overwhelming violence to overpower their enemies, only to be defeated after two pages due to a mixture of their hubris and Xykon's unexpected power.

Cersei believes that authority and violence are the only power that matter. Xykon knows power comes in all forms.

[prncssie]

Ty for responding lovey, I adore your interpretation, especially the part about googling stupid stuff lol. Going on quora and such. I can imagine him shamefully deleting his search history afterwards in case his fbi agent turned out to be a snitch

But, I wonder how fast he would just get tired of dropping subtle sighs and just tell reader about his feelings.

Hope you have a wonderful day/afternoon/night

~ ☄️

yk it’s so funny you mention this bc i actually already have it planned out in my head how reader n hobie come to be reader n hobie. i could probably write it but i wont bc it would be very angsty and im not a angst person.

everyone knows hobie is not into the way society operates. it’s common knowledge. that same thing would carry over to relationships and it would be very very very difficult for him to break out of his habits.

he’s not a toxic bf at all i think he’s very sweet n perfect n i love him. i just don’t think that he was the first one to make the move like the real let’s be exclusive n together move. in my universe, you and hobie are on again off again for a while. after the initial flirting, he never really asks you out. you go on dates and you act like a couple but he doesn’t put the label on it bc he doesn’t care.

now this can go one of two ways, you also don’t care and are chill w it or you do care. im gonna go w the you do care route. it becomes something that you ask him. literally you send the what are we text and he just blanks bc he doesn’t know what to call it but he knows he’s having a good time and is happy with you. he’s not into defining and labeling everything. he doesn’t like categorizing stuff and putting it into a neat and pretty box all bc someone said so.

this can and will cause problems bc you want a label. you want something to call him and he really don’t gaf what you call it. lots of arguments bc you don’t understand him and he couldn’t be arsed. like, this is a vvvv slow burn bc to you, a label means stability and you feel like he’s not giving you that and you’re not enjoying it. to him, a label is just another way of making everything fit in societies standards. he doesn’t way to do what everyone is doing and be brainless and conform.

in the end, i’m not sure what the push is or what the compromise is. you’re free to interpret and lmk but ig it just gets exhausting to do the back and forth but neither of you view it as more important than each other so you kinda just . . . never talk about it again. instead of introducing him as your boyfriend, you say partner and he likes it bc it could entail anything. life partner, partner in crime, wtv.

but yeah c: that’s my personal canon that i believe in for every hobie i’ve ever written, even prowler hobie. except sometimes ik ill use the word bf but now you know he just stopped bringing it up and pointing out that he doesn’t like it.

[ladykailitha]

Right, so there is something I have to bring up with the story "The Harrington Design" and that's author knowledge verses character knowledge.

Steve is a nineteen year old boy in 1980s hick Indiana. What he knows could probably fill a thimble. If Steve says something wrong or something that is recent knowledge, just remember I've already addressed it here:

Steve ducked his head again and blushed. “Just because I’m not interested in science and fantasy doesn’t mean I’m stupid.” He straightened up. “And yeah, sometimes I get things wrong. But everyone does at some point. In fact I get a hell of a lot more flack for my intelligence than Eddie does and he repeated his senior year twice!” He took a deep breath and then ran his fingers through his hair.

So what is character knowledge vs author knowledge:

Author Knowledge:

I want to preface that I am not ragging on the book, I'm sure it's delightful. "Red, White, and Royal Blue" has the main character as the Prince of Wales, despite the fact that he is fourth in line to the English throne. A quick google search would tell the author that his mother, the heir to the throne, would be the Princess of Wales.

This is author knowledge. But this is an extreme example when most of the time it's more about in universe stuff that a character wouldn't know.

Character Knowledge:

This anything a character would know. But remember that characters are people and their knowledge wouldn't be perfect.

A good example of this is from "Percy Jackson and the Last Olympian". He comes across a statue that is holding a horn of plenty and he confuses her for Demeter (the statues were designed by Daedalus to come to life to aid New York if it ever came under attack) and she gets mad at him because she's Pompona the Roman goddess of plenty. Percy has only ever interacted with Greek gods so it was an easy mistake to make.

Does that make sense?

It's not the author getting things wrong, it's that the character has limited knowledge. And Steve wouldn't know about religious clothes, women's clothes, or weapons used at the time. Because he wouldn't have been interested in them. Broader things like how to string a bow or what a gambeson is, he'd know. But the rest? Middling knowledge at best.

Also for those new to my writing: I delete anonymous asks that are hate, make me mad, or just straight up upsets me. I won't engage. Mmk?

[making-my-wey-down-town]

The Famous Introduction Pinned Post

Hi, Hola! You have found the way!

Not any way tho. Me, Wey. You found me! Hola! Que pedo? Pásale a lo barrido 🧹

(2024 note: I need to update this)

That hooman that you see there. Si ese! That’s my sona. A pleasure to meet you. (Outfits change often lol) (Also! The formal clothes supposedly gives the hint that I work as a security guard on the game :v)

More about me: I’m a lazy simp artist. *bows with no shame* Yeah, that’s all of my self presentation :3

As you can see, I’m very much currently hyped with The Daycare Attendants. The scrunckly bois ❤️ I don’t have a specific way to draw the bot bois tho.

So in my blog you will find mostly reblogs of them than my own art. But I will try to share more of my doodles and ideas in the future. (Cuz can’t be considered an artist if I don’t do or share shid right? :v)

Besides being on the FNAF SB fandom I’m also interested in Welcome Home, The Arcana, MHA.

All my art is under #wey draws

My main OC’s are under #wiggles and giggles the clown twins (watch their very first Halloween experience #quick doodle , they are cosplaying as Skid and Pump!)

Here their reference sheet: (old reference btw, their shoes are bigger now etc)

Gremlins dressed up as clowns basically. My babies 💜 (they were born after i got hooked on the game of FNAF SB)

Facts about them:

Both of them are boys. So he/him pronouns to each

3’6ft

Small animatronics that love to entertain families with their clown acts in the Pizzaplex

Their pants have hidden pockets, stuffed with materials and items for their clown acts. Mostly balloons. (Their hats have stuff too)

On birthday parties they always end up covered in cake

Free to roam around where the public is. Need employee permission or escort to go to restricted areas

Often seen in the daycare where there is a lot of kids to play with. Sun doesn’t always enjoy their visit (such troublemakers sometimes)

At night, when the Pizzaplex closes they immediately go to the daycare. To play with Sun and accompany Moon in his patrols (Moon will never admit he appreciates the company)

They can’t be separated. It causes an extreme anxiety for both, especially if it’s forced

Twin telepathy. Normally knowing what the other thinks. Often saying stuff at the same time and finishing each other sentences

They rarely fight with each other

Both love the attention

None of them knows personal space

They either help or create chaos (Both? Excellent partners in crime)

Press their nose, it does honk noises. They also have a feature to make their shoes do funny sounds

Fart jokes (noises) are hilarious for them

They are indeed high intelligent AI’s but they have the knowledge of a child. Teach and treat them like a kid

Can handle a limited amount of water if they get wet. Preferably to avoid it

Their white eyes can turn black with red pupils when turned in security mode. It is only to intimidate intruders and potentially dangerous people. (Can act scary if their target doesn’t normalize)

They have no virus! But that doesn’t mean they can’t obtain it 👁️👁️

Facts of each clown:

Giggles (Gig):

Likes the color blue and sharks

Normally the one who makes troubles (nothing serious, just mischievous child behavior)

Loves to make people smile and laugh but also get in their nerves (depending the person and situation)

Wiggles (Wig):

Likes the color pink and bunnies

The more responsible one of the two but still gets involved in troubles

Loves to make people have fun (specially if it’s done by his clown acts)

In the future I would like to share some ideas of AU’s I have in mind (idk if they are good enough lol) but for now my goal is to finish art projects that are meant for many friends and awesome artists.

—————————————————

AU’S Que Hice!

Ahoy! Mateys (AU mermay) - The journey of a high spirit kid named Y/N!

Dreaming of becoming a pirate one day!

Sailing the ocean in search of grand treasures and fun adventures with the unbelievable help of two sirens, their best friends!

Who and which said sea creatures seem conflicted with their actions and feelings when it comes to Y/N.

(non-romance just to clarify)

As it’s very known that these two species can never get along.

Will their friendship overcome the stereotypes?

Jump aboard and find out!

—————————————————

My social skills are terrible very good. I have a messed up social battery, it comes and goes. So is very common to find me active some days and then gone for some weeks (months). But frens, moots feel free to reach me anytime. Bother me. Tag me. Be random. Quick chat or a question. I’m okay with all that. I also like it, feels like I’m not forgotten (I’m not the greatest to initiate the conversation but I will totally respond to whatever I get included on 🫂💞)

As for strangers, people who follows me. (Actual real people and not bots lol) Feel free to send asks. Just don’t expect a genius answer from my part heh. Remain respectful, and yup :)

Thank you for your time and attention until the end if you got this far. *hugs ya and gifts ya a real Mexican taco 🌮* Have a nice day/night! Te quiero güey ❤️

[oidheadh-con-culainn]

any tips for where someone might wanna research to kick off an interest in medieval literature? there's a LOT out there and i've not had much luck with only university reading lists as a start point.

hmm are you looking for books about medieval literature or are you looking for medieval texts to read

because if you are looking for medieval texts to read, i highly recommend táin bó cúailnge lmao (i just think it's neat! also i read it with basically zero contextual knowledge as an 18-year-old weirdo and had a good time). if you search for the tag "reading list" on my blog (i think that's the one i use!) you'll find previous posts with recs of medieval texts and where to find them, including a "so you've read the táin, now what" post that might be helpful if you take that first rec. it's all very irish bc that's what i do. other people have lists for other languages

if you are looking for info about medieval lit though i would say possibly a good place to start is podcast/videos if you are that kind of learner? i am not, so i can't offer many recommendations, and there's definitely a lot of bullshit about there, but. sometimes the bullshit is fertiliser. like you hear something you think is interesting so then you look it up and find out what it's actually about, yunno? there are also real academics and other clued-up people talking about medieval lit though. you could try the celtic students podcast for some tasters of what research people are doing in the field these days. for irish lit @finnlongman has some videos with retellings and further reading in the descriptions (sorry, i don't know a lot of non-irish/celtic-specific resources haha)

like i absolutely got into medieval literature in... not the WORST way bc it wasn't actively racist except that a lot of my sources were from the 19th century, but it definitely wasn't a GOOD way either. i read a LOT of bullshit, from heavily sanitised retellings and terrible 80s fantasy novels to romanticist popular history, so i had to unlearn a lot of stuff once i started doing it properly haha. so all my "introductory" sources were bad and i would not recommend them. but also it did work for me. which is the problem bc it means i don't have a lot of recs for stuff when you're first starting out and haven't already figured out what bullshit you're trying to get to the bottom of 😂

but yeah check out the "reading list" tag for other recs i've shared in the past and also other people's recs that i've reblogged! there might be some useful stuff in there idk!

sorry this isn't more helpful i'm very sleepy

[voraciouspangolin]

How to navigate and browse tumblr to find posts from years and years ago: perhaps something useful?

Anywho. This'll be centered around tf2 art. Because of how long the fandom's been chugging along, tf2 art on tumblr dates back to the early 2010s. Talking about this like I'm an archeologist... but yeah. And a lot of these drawings or gifsets or sfm creations are lost to time because of the hunter-gatherer nature of tumblr's reblog system. You can't reblog stuff from a deactivated account, and posts from an account that was last active in 2017, barring the popular posts that circle around for years, are something you have to actively seek out. I'm assuming this knowledge is already pretty common but I figured I'd share how I go about having these big queues of tf2 art posts from 2013 to 2018.

I have used these methods since before I even had a tumblr account, back when I was searching up things like Girls Kissing on pinterest and following the paper trail of links, browsing through reblogs and likes, gambling on whichever blog I clicked on, all to sate my curiosity by burning images into my retinas that no child should have ever seen.

So that's basically the concept- when you stumble onto a post that dates back a handful of years, you scroll through the reblogs (under the "other reblogs" category) until you reach the oldest ones. You then click on the oldest rebloggers url, and from there you can see whether or not you'll want to spend time scrolling through that blog, or if you should move on to the second oldest reblog. And then the third oldest, and so on and so forth.

It's like, a 50/50 gamble on whether or not the blog you'll click on will have what you're looking for, and even then odds are that tf2 wasn't the only thing the blog posted about, so some scrolling will most likely have to be done.

Sometimes blogs have a tagging system for the kinds of posts you're looking for. 3 out of 10 old blogs I go through have "tf2" as a tag, which makes my life really easy. You just click on that tag and scroll through the posts under it.

I usually start off with really popular tf2 art posts from before 2016, and then go through the process of scrolling and browsing the rebloggers' blogs.

It's very much a useless and time consuming thing to do, but I find a sense of joy in seeing how the tf2 mercs have evolved in the eyes of tf2 artists over the years. Also it's like a gambling addiction. The anticipation- it's soooo good. Will I find cool art? Will I find weird niche posts that only have 20 notes? Who knows! "99% of post archeologists quit before they hit it big" type shit

Anywyas. That's all from me, happy hunting and gathering

[lizard-shifter-noms]

Broken Bloodlines Chapter 9

———————————————————————————————

Part 9!!!

we are now in the latter half of chapters!

this Story contains Vore, Dont like dont read.

CW; mentions of injuries, mentions of corpses, mentions of death.

have fun reading!

and as always reblogs are appreciated! (Also ASK’s are open so feel free to bother me!)

AO3 Link for those that prefer the layout there; https://archiveofourown.org/works/44627188

———————————————————————————————

Why was she coming with us? Did she also reject the title?

She smiled politely.

“Hello! I'm joining you for a few days! I realized i have no idea on what to do now and Rikaad offered to show me how to manage paperwork!”

I looked over to Rikaad who didn't look very happy about that.

Well, better than having her fuck up stuff and cause accidental suffering.

The ride back was spent with Robin talking to Amicia about the cat and Arthur hanging out the window again.

His Cousin did awkwardly pat his back in encouragement though.

Aside from that neither me nor Rikaad said anything,  He was just staring out the window.

I decided to keep an eye on Arthur so that I could catch him in case he fell out.

Luckily he did not.

The way back seemed to drag on and on but eventually we got to the Castle.

Getting out of the carriage Rikaad wasted no time and immediately went to show Amicia on what to do even if his own knowledge on this was limited.

Arthur of course followed them which left me and Robin standing right behind the entrance gate.

This had been such a wild day and I was tired but there was also still some adrenaline in my system.

And a lot of worry as well, Fable had gotten injured then the chaos with Maringand and then Oakleys death.

I hoped the Winged man could rest in peace.

Maybe we could ask Barsen to arrange some flowers for him?

At the broken tower Oakley had almost fully moved into before he…  got hit with a burning net.

I'd tell him to avoid flame colored ones for the sake of my sanity.

I turned to Robin.

“Do you know where Barsen is? I want to ask him something”

Robin shook his head.

“He was in the kitchen for a bit but then he said he had to check up on a part of the Garden and left, he didn't come back though”

Barsen simply disappearing wasn't new, he'd be around somewhere.

“Well lets ask the kitchen staff if he came back”

It was possible he had gone back to chat a little with the Kitchen staff as he did that regularly.

The Kitchen was not too far from the entrance anyway, 

just around the left corner and there it was.

To avoid spooking anyone we politely knocked on the small Door that led outside.

Myril was the one to open it and she waved us inside again.

“What are you here for this time? More snacks?”

She had a tone of amusement in her voice and on any other day she would have been right.

But after everything that happened today i just didn't feel like eating anything.

Good thing I didn't have to.

I shook my head.

“Any other day sure, but we are actually looking for Barsen,  Have you seen him?”

Myril seemed to think for a second before she answered.

“Well the last time I saw him Robin was also here,  He said he had to check on something in the Garden.

He didn't come back but that's nothing new, the man is elusive on good days so he's probably just somewhere amidst the greenery, I swear sometimes it seems like he's one with it!”

One with the greenery eh? Yeah that sounded accurate.

Then again he did admit to us that his great grandma was a Dryad or something so the plants might just like him.

We Thanked Myril and left to go look for the Gardener.

We tried to think of where he usually was but could only come up with either the cliffside or the areas without trees as he kept ripping the dandelions out to avoid them taking over.

We searched the left side first as that one was way smaller due to the cliff ending there before we moved on to the right side.

Surprisingly we were joined then by Myril and the older Guard that had kept an eye on Rowley who was right behind.

Speaking of the little guy was awake again but still looked exhausted.

I sent him inside the castle to go ask for Medical help,  proper one this time.

The Guard went with him to avoid getting Lost while Nea limped up to us just as he passed the door to the throne room.

“What are ya Lads doin?”

She asked cheerfully while leaning on her crutch, huh,  she must have gotten Winton to talk then.

“We're looking for Barsen, i wanted to ask him something about plants”

She nodded still in a good mood.

“He probably has forgotten more about plants than anyone else ever knew, so if it's a plant Question he is tha man!

Ya know what imma join ya in lookin fer him, he lost his keys near the shed yer staying at”

She fished said keys out of her pocket and jingled them.

I could make out that the keychain only had four Keys on it, and one of those was way too big to belong to any of the castle doors.

Nea stuffed the keys back in her pocket and used both of her crutches to walk this time, one did look suspiciously bent though.

It wasn't too far off to assume she hit someone with it.

With four people now looking for him, even if I didn't know while the otherwise mostly busy Myril was helping, 

It should be easy to find the Gardener.

Combing through the trees I avoided Oakleys tower as best as I could, I really didn't want to see the not quite finished thing for now.

So instead I ended up going alongside the inner Wall with Nea right next to me.

We had decided to not go alone in case any soldiers did manage to sneak into here.

We were almost at the Northmost side of the wall when my shirt got tangled in a thorny bush.

While Nea laughed I cursed the thing and tried as carefully as possible to remove my shirt. 

I didn't want to rip this one or else I would have managed to destroy two in a day.

While I set onto getting the hem out of the plant without Damaging either Nea just kept walking, I would be able to quickly catch up again anyway seeing as she had crutches still.

It took me a good minute or so till I got it out just in time to hear a scream.

I didn't recognize the scream at first but then realized that it had been Nea's voice.

What on earth was capable of getting her to scream like that?

I wasn't the only one that heard it and as I sprinted toward the sound I was joined by some wall Guards that had just taken up their shifts again.

I had to duck under a branch and as I stood up again I could see what had been the cause of Nea’s scream.

There were about ten soldiers lying dead on the ground and in the middle of them kneeling and only held up by a tree sapling was Barsen.

He was Dead, there was no way he was Alive, not with at least seven swords stuck in his torso and a battle ax embedded in one of his legs.

There also was a hole in the castle wall right behind all of them, no doubt where the soldiers had gotten in.

My brain felt like it had been replaced by cotton and was stuck in slow motion, The entire scene before me was surreal.

The Soldiers hadn't even been killed with actual weapons,  Instead there were various gardening tools stuck in whatever unprotected spot was possible.

It took a few more seconds to register that these guys were Wintons best and most devoted Soldiers, i had seen them before back in the Tower.

How did Barsen manage to take so many out?

Then things snapped back to normal when I heard a wail and a familiar redheaded form bumped into me.

He was crying and I realized there were other people, lots of them.

How did this happen? 

I pulled Robin closer to me and he sobbed into my shirt.

As much as i wanted i couldn't look away from Barsen,  like he'd get up any second and then try to mend the broken branches of the sapling he had fallen on.

But he would never get up again, the blood had stopped flowing from his wounds some time ago and he was just, there.

The most astounding thing was that aside from some trampled grass none of the plants had taken any damage,  aside from the sapling that held Barsen.

Nobody did anything, most were just crying or staring in disbelief.

Even some of the Guards were crying.

Barsen really had been the most liked person in the castle.

At some point even more Guards showed up,  half of which also did not do anything while the other half had to drag people away from the rather gruesome sight.

I shifted my arm to block Robin's view of it even if he had already seen it.

He was still just sobbing into my side while I stood there frozen as my brain refused to cooperate with me.

I was suddenly dragged away from where I stood with Robin still clinging to me, and through the wool in my head I could make out the words ‘shock’ and ‘infirmary’.

Time seemed to warp and suddenly I found myself in the infirmary on a bed next to Robin while a Nurse gave me something to drink.

It tasted bitter and I noticed that my shoulder was bleeding again but didn't feel it at all.

I tried to get up but was pushed back down again by a nurse.

I was told to stay still and rest.

After that i did not remember anything,  The entire stress of the day took me out cold.

All in all it was a wonder I hadn't crumpled earlier from all that had happened in the span of just one day.

War, then there was Another Ardua, Oakley burned to death,  Fable falling in the River, visiting Maringand and freeing Amicia. 

Going back home and then finding Barsen dead in the middle of the Soldiers he fought.

It really was a miracle that my brain had kept working through all of that, well most of that.

Whatever they had given me ensured I would stay asleep for some time.

……………………………………………………………………………………...........................

I only woke up the next day around midday and I felt like I was missing entire chunks of my memory.

Looking to my left I could see Robin sleeping in the bed right next to me and curled up like a little cat.

Wait, this was the infirmary, how'd he get in here? 

Wait, what was I doing in the infirmary?

Then I recalled what had happened yesterday.

Two people I had considered to be good friends were Dead,  both having died in rather horrible ways.

At least Barsen had a body to bury,  Oakley just fell apart into a heap of ash.

Now that I was calm again and had a somewhat clear mind I did question if he really had burned as fast as I had perceived it or if I just went into shock back then as well.

Wait, Oakleys claw gauntlet thingy should still be there,  it would at least be something to bury.

I really hoped nobody had taken them,  though they weren't really usable for anyone else.

I stood up as quietly as I could to not Disturb anyone else and tried to sneak out.

As soon as I opened the door however I was greeted by Nea,  who did wear her helmet over her eyes for once and i suspected they were red and puffy,  she appeared to have been standing Guard for a while now though.

At least if the chair next to her was anything to go by.

We stared at each other for a good fifteen seconds.

“Go on, get, just be back before dawn or i'll kick yer arse”

She said grimly and unhappily.

Right, she'd been good friends with Barsen as well,  known him for way longer than I did too.

He'd been the only one she ever accepted help from without any sort of fuss, which was basically a miracle.

Sneaking out was surprisingly easy,  Then again it seemed that now every Guard was stationed on the wall and there were signs that the area had been searched.

The garden looked, sad, for a lack of a better word.

Despite it being light out all of the flowers were closed like it was midnight, how strange.

I debated which way to go to try and get the Gauntlets when I heard rustling in one of the bushes.

I was startled at first but then realized whatever this was was way too small to be a person.

I carefully and slowly went over to inspect only to have the Cat stumble out of the bush.

She blinked at me once and then put her head back into the bush.

What was she doing?

I went closer just as she turned around again with a familiar item in her maw.

Oakleys Gauntlet! Or at least one of them.

She dropped in front of my feet and then dragged the second one out of the bush just as I lifted the first one from the ground.

“What the fuck? You really are something else Cat,  also that must have taken you all day!”

“Mrow?”

She just gently brushed against my legs and then demanded to be picked up by trying to climb my knee.

I did have to admit that this was an impressive feature of intelligence and if the Kitchen staff hadn't attested to see her being Born i'd almost say a witch forgot her pet here.

But quite frankly I was way too drained to think too much about this.

Maybe she did have some magic and that made her intelligent? 

I had heard of animals gaining intelligence through magic.

Well, she still did normal cat things so I really had no idea.

I picked her up like she demanded before she clawed through the bandages on my leg and held her like a baby.

She immediately began purring and closed her eyes.

Yeah, not a chance I could set her down in the next few minutes.

At least that made me feel a little less hollowed out for now.

I had the Gauntlets, so now what?

Should I bury them next to the tower?

It was where he lived, or at least wanted to.

Then I remembered that I had left that old book there anyway and if left there for who knew how long time would just damage it.

Rain was still a thing after all and Oakley did not get the roof done as far as I knew.

So i had to go there regardless,  it would be stupid to let such an old one of a kind book rot there.

I'd just put it back in the Library then,  maybe someone else would find it interesting.

The walk to the broken tower was short, and i could see that really all of the plants had closed their blossoms, it almost seemed like it was fall.

Without the smell of rotten leaves though,  which made it all the more weird to cross through.

“Mrrp?”

The cat softly bapped at my chin before bonking her head against me.

“Im fine, i think, i'm still alive at least and have all my limbs,  which is more than some other can say”

Why was I even talking to the cat like that?

Maybe it was just nice to say things without the worry of being judged or looked at weird.

Ducking under a branch I reached the small clearing that the tower was built in, yep, still looked like everything was okay here.

That really made me want to punch something, but I couldn't,  One, because I was holding the Cat and two,  none of this stuff was mine and I was not going to damage it!

Instead of burying the Gauntlets I decided to just leave them on a table, like he'd come home any moment even if I knew he wouldn't.

The Cat jumped out of my arms and went to sit in one of the unfinished windows right next to the old Oak Tree.

Man that thing had to be really old. 

It was wider than I was tall and managed to tilt the entire tower a little.

I exited the tower since I technically didn't have any business being here, it really only made me sad seeing it stuffed full with things that now would never get used.

As I left through the doorway that only had a makeshift door I heard an awfull cracking sound.

Like splintering wood.

I looked around before the sound came again from above me.

Was the Oak tree losing some of its branches?

I'd better not stand directly under it then.

Before I could move too far away there was another even louder cracking sound and I looked up to the groove between the branches where Oakley had put up some sort of hammock.

Weird, despite the sound none of the branches appeared to be even a little damaged.

Wait, did something up there just move?

I was not mistaken as there was indeed something up there.

It had the same color as some of the barkless spots on the tree and appeared to be covered in tree sap.

What was that?

Now I wished I had a knife.

There was another cracking sound and whatever it was unfurled, revealing what looked to be a membrane and three fingers.

Wait that looked awfully familiar, but that couldn't be, there was no way.

At another cracking sound a second limb appeared,  mirroring the other and just as much covered in tree sap.

I was rooted on the spot, transfixed by what was going on.

More noises of splintering and breaking wood sounded out and a vaguely humanoid shape heaved itself out of the old tree.

It grabbed the hammock from where it was and used it as a sort of old fashioned tunica.

There was a two pronged tail sticking out of it too,  a very familiar and prehensile one.

“OAKLEY?!?”

He turned around and I could see that it was indeed the winged man I had seen burn to little more than ashes only a day prior.

Technically it had been around twenty four hours even.

He stumbled out of the tree, seemingly still unsure on his legs like a baby deer.

“Ah, hello Donovan! I hope I didn't scare you!”

Didn't scare me? Well kind of, but what the hell was happening?

“Oakley? What the FUCK! Is going on?”

He shook himself a little to get rid of the tree sap and used part of his hammock-turned-tunica to wipe the residue of his wings.

“Well, as you can surely tell im not human,  far from it actually as there is no human at all in my ancestry!

I'm as Bastard as Bastard can be!

Well, in short im a fucked up magical creature that can’t actually die by normal means!

I just ‘resprout’ in the next best and oldest Oaktree!

But dying still hurts so I always do my best to avoid it!”

I just stared at the man, he couldn't die by normal means? 

What the hell?

Also-

“What the fuck are you then that this is possible?”

I had known that Oakley was far from a normal being but this was just Wild.

He just shrugged,  seemingly completely unbothered by having died the day before.

“I'm just Oakley, always have been, at some point my ancestry became so mixed that i am partially belonging to species that are now extinct”

So, he was a lot of different things mixed together which would explain the weird featherless wings and the two pronged tail.

And he had magic on top of that.

“Im not sure if i understand that correctly but in any case what the fuck?

Also you couldn't have said that BEFORE the battle??? 

I thought you really died!”

I was shaking now,  the stress from the past days and the Death of Barsen,  and the assumed death of Oakley had just been way too much.

And now Oakley was okay somehow?

He could have told people he'd be fine before the battle! 

So we would have one less thing to worry about!

“Donovan, you're hyperventilating, calm down”

Calm down? How could i? 

So much had happened! People died! 

Right in front of my eyes too! Barsen was dead! 

I unintentionally scared Fable and he was injured!

During the battle I was a coward because I didn't dare kill anyone!

There is Another Ardua here now too! 

And if i had charged him any stronger he would have cracked his skull open! I could have killed him!

So much stuff that my brain was only now catching up on,  like it had blocked out anything but the basic functions.

“-van? Donovan? Can you hear me? Hey!”

I looked up from where I was kneeling on the ground,  When did that happen? And why did I have my hands over my ears?

Oakley sat down in front of me while I tried not to panic again.

His ears were pointed down and he did not look happy.

Then he suddenly pulled me into a hug.

“C’mere, sometimes i forget that you are all just children, eighteen isn't some magical number where you are suddenly a fully formed adult after all”

Any other time I would have been offended at being called a child but Oakley was right, of course he was,  I had no idea what I was doing, I had no idea how to be an adult.

And there never had been anyone to teach me either.

Everything that had happened in the past week had just been chaotic and stressful and now I had no idea what to do.

So I cried for the first time in years.

At that moment I didn't even care that Oakley was there,  or that he was still covered in tree sap.

I was just glad not to be alone, it was still hard to get used to the fact that I could ask for help, especially in things that were emotion related.

And that would take time, years of what i mistook for solitude instead of loneliness wouldn't go away in just a few weeks.

Oakley didn't say anything,  just let me get all the negative emotions out while he softly ran his fingers through my hair in an attempt to comfort me.

It worked a little.

I had no idea how long I stayed like that but eventually I calmed down enough for Oakley to let go and make tea in his tower.

He noticed that I brought the gauntlets back and thanked me for it.

Now I was just sitting here with a steaming mug of tea,  feeling strangely, relieved? Albeit empty.

Maybe I really should stop bottling up all of my negative emotions.

The Cat was still here surprisingly and jumped up on the askew Table.

She draped herself over my arm and started purring.

“Don't get any hairs in his tea!”

Oakley called from where he poured his own cup.

“Its fine, she's just trapping my arm but i don't mind, she's soft”

Oakley laughed gently.

“Have you found a name for her yet?”

I shook my head.

“Nah, me and Robin tried like two hundred though and it looks like she doesn't like any of them”

He sat across from me and reached a wing over to softly bap the Cats snout.

In doing so he accidentally knocked the book I had found in the Library to the floor.

He picked it up with a confused look in his eyes.

“Well that's not one of mine”

“Oh, i brought that one,  i found it in the library and thought you might like it”

He stared at me for a second with something indecipherable in his eyes.

“This thing looks older than I am! 

And for that the condition isn't too bad either”

Looked older than he was? How old was he?

No i wasn't gonna ask, that would just mess with my brain even more.

He flipped the first page open.

“Have you read it? You are right that this is something i find interesting”

He flipped through the book faster than I had read it,  Then again he had more practice.

“Uh yeah i have read it, and i found it confusing, with those Creatures and all, also the places look like Maringand and Kamerasca.

Do you think that really happened?”

Oakley looked up for just one second.

“Well, it is very possible,  The book is very old and seems to have been made as a means to retell what happened, a shame some pages are missing.

And from what i know of the area it seems accurate enough”

So that could have really happened? How long did Maringand and Kamerasca have a stupid feud for anyway?

“So Maringand and Kamerasca have always been on bad terms until now? Just because someone a few hundred or more years in the past fucked up?”

Oakley sighted at that and held up the Book.

“Look i have been alive for quite some time, and people always find a way to fuck things up, be it intentional or not.

“Everybody makes mistakes, that's perfectly normal after all.

But sometimes there are mistakes too great to move on from.

It is not their fault, but it was once, and it will be one day.

Always different people,  burdening the consequences of a single mistake.

Of a single person they now have no resemblance with.

Some would call it Karma.

Others would call it unfair.

But perhaps ‘Hubris’ would be the better description for it.

To meddle with forces beyond your control and pay the price across all existence.

How terribly human.”

So, humans were doomed to repeat their mistakes across all of history?

“So no matter what we do it will all just happen again anyway? 

Why do anything at all then?”

Oakey looked at me like I had flipped the table over.

Well he couldn't expect me to be happy after he said something like that!

Really! He made it sound like whatever we did was irrelevant!

Oakley then put the Book back on the Table, 

out of reach of the cups and looked me right in the eyes.

“Because every tiny bit of effort could be what breaks that horrendous cycle, the people writing the book knew that.

That's why they left the story of what happened to them behind even after they were gone, so people could learn from it!

Most of the stupid and bloody battles that happen are because people don't learn from their history, sure, some say they do but then go and make exactly those Mistakes again.

Over and over again until finally someone ACTUALLY learns and does better!

But of course if the ones after that don't learn that progress is for naught.

But with every little bit of progress,  Every story written and read the world can become a better place!

But that might take a long time”

I just stared at him, so there was a chance that one day things would not repeat? That it would be better for those after us?

“So should I read more books?”

Oakley launched at that,  the weird bird-like caw ever present in his voice.

“Well that's one way of course,  but that doesn't guarantee that you actually learn or understand,  Besides, I think you are fine the way you are!

You already fought in a war, albeit a short one, without killing anyone! Thanks to that a lot of people got to go home!

No, you are fine! As long as you stay kind.

But i will warn you there are people that will take advantage of that, besides ,nobody in the world is a hundred percent good anyway”

So he basically just called me a pretty alright guy,  At least that was how I understood it.

“Nobody is a hundred percent good? Are you sure? Not even Robin?”

Oakley cackled at that.

“When I say nobody I mean nobody!

Sure the little Ginger is a ray of sunshine, but he's only sixteen! 

There's a whole life ahead of him with events that will change and shape his personality!”

That was not something I had thought of before,  of course nobody would stay exactly the same throughout their life.

But we would stay friends regardless, I was sure of that,  Besides, being a bit more mature couldn't hurt him.

“Yeah, you are right in that, still there are a lot of nice people in the castle, i doubt they would do that”

Oakley just shook his head at that, sighing.

“one of the most important things, 

perhaps the most important thing I have learned in my stupidly long life is that nice people can fuck each other up in monstrous ways. 

People can be bone deep, kind and loving and self reflective and still lash out under pressure. 

People can be charitable and hospitable and generous and still find themselves in situations where they become selfish. 

People can be well meaning and easygoing and hold deep seated opinions that turn them into vicious little bullies under the right conditions. 

Nobody is just one thing, and nobody stays one way. 

every person is a kaleidoscope and they will surprise you. 

you will surprise yourself.”

At my surprised face he held up a hand to signal me to stay quiet.

“It's not a warning and it's not a judgment and it's not an excuse,  and it's certainly not a reason to stop trying or to stop trusting. 

it is just a fact. “

I wondered how long Oakley had been alive for to get all that wisdom.

“So no matter how nice i think someone is there's always a chance they will turn mean if i do or say the wrong thing?

Man, people are complicated!”

“Now you get it! Just remember,  If it sounds too good to be true then it probably is!”

Well this talk with Oakley had somehow been both depressing and optimistic.

Which probably made it realistic i guessed.

I tried to move my arm a little as I was starting to get that pins and needles sensation from the cat laying on it.

She rolled off of it with a disappointed mewl.

“Sorry kitty but my arm is falling asleep”

She jumped from the table and went out the window.

Trough that i could see that the sky had been tinted a deep orange,  oh fuck.

“What time is it? I told Nea I'd be back before Dawn! 

She said she'd kick my ass if  didn't come back by then!”

Oakley Cackled at that.

“With only one leg? I'd love to see that!”

I rolled my eyes at that.

“She could still hit me with her crutches,  so id better go now, but thank you for-”

For what exactly? The tea? I hadn't even drunk half of it, 

for letting me cry without judgment? 

“-thanks for everything, i'll leave the Book here for now and then go to sleep, see you tomorrow?”

He nodded.

“See you tomorrow, by that time I'll have actual pants too!”

I couldn't help but laugh at his comment before carefully closing the ruddy door behind me.

After crying for who knew how long I felt tired,  I just hoped that when I next woke up all of this hadn't been a dream.

At least the infirmary had comfortable beds, they weren't as stupidly soft as the ones in the room I had shared with Fable.

Fable! God, I was such an idiot! I should go check up on him!

Since he was an Elf he was likely moved to the Castles infirmary also.

I'd just ask a Nurse where he was to as if he was alright and then tell him goodnight.

Traversing the Garden at dawn made it look kinda eerie,  but that was just because everything looked weirdly darker and more Orange.

At least the castle itself was bright enough to lead the way so finding it was no problem.

Going back to the infirmary I was greeted by Nea still in front of the door.

“Welcome back! One minute later and I woulda kicked yer arse!”

She swung one of her crutches at me but missed due to me being too far away.

“Yeah, sorry, it's been a weird day and I forgot to look at the time.

Also Oakley is somehow back, don't ask me i have no idea”

I went past the now extremely confused looking Nea into the infirmary where I was immediately scolded by a nurse for leaving without saying anything.

I let her finish talking before I asked her where Fable was.

She pointed to one of the curtains and I could indeed see his Rapier laying on the table outside of it.

Since I couldn't knock on a piece of fabric I just slowly slid it to the side.

The Curtain revealed only an empty bed.

“Fable?”

Maybe he'd gone to get something to drink? 

But he could have asked a nurse for that.

Just to be sure he really wasn't there I looked under the covers and even under the bed itself.

Still nothing, where was he?

This really did not help my stress level, not after yesterday.

I alerted a Nurse to his disappearance who checked the rest of the room to try and find him.

Fable was tall and pale,  he couldn't just have gotten out unnoticed, right?

I tried to think through this logically,  he HAD to be somewhere, So where did he go?

He also had an injured foot so he couldn't have gone that far.

If he had tried to leave the defensive walls of the Castle someone would have stopped him.

Inside the castle itself there were too many people to go around unnoticed for long.

So that only left outside, in the Garden.

I just came back! 

And now it was Dark, what on earth could he want there?

Well, only one way to find out.

Completely ignoring Nea as she asked what the fuck i meant by Oakley being back and where the hell i was going i went back outside again.

It was now almost completely dark, and the air had gotten a bit colder.

For once I was thankful that Fable was so pale,  he'd stand out against the dark background at least.

But after what had happened I didn't want to go through the Garden,  But I did need to find Fable.

So I stepped into the darkness, trying my best to avoid branches hitting my face and set out to go look for the taller man.

I looked along the wall,  purposefully avoiding where Barsen had died,  and slinked quietly next to Oakley tower.

I could even hear the winged man doing something with Fabric,  likely new pants as he said.

I checked up on top of the trees even but there was no sign of him.

Where did he go? He couldn't just disappear!

I had now looked almost everywhere for Fable but just couldn't find him. 

Maybe if I took a break and thought about where he could be I'd find him?

Besides I was a bit out of breath after all that had happened so sitting down for a minute wouldn't hurt.

Since I was near my favorite sunspot, I decided to go and rest there to think about where my Brother had gone. 

His leg was busted so he couldn't be too far, right?

Emerging from the greenery I saw that the boulder was occupied by a now familiar white haired form.

Fable.

How the fuck he managed to get there was beyond me especially since he didn't have crutches anywhere near him.

He was staring up at the night sky and seemed calm, not the weird calm he exuded before but rather a calm that radiated peace.

I silently sat next to him and looked up too.

There wasn't really anything out of the ordinary aside from that it was a cloudless night and all the stars were perfectly visible now that it had gotten dark.

They were really pretty. 

Maybe I should pay them more attention, at least sometime.

“There are less stars here”

I looked at Fable, what did he mean by that? 

The sky was the same everywhere wasn't it?

“What?”

He answered without looking away from the stars.

“Do you know what light pollution is?”

Light pollution? The only pollution I knew of was when water was dirty, but that surely wasn't the case here.

“No, do you?”

He nodded briefly.

“Light Pollution is excessive, misdirected, artificial light. 

Too much light pollution washes out starlight in the night sky making it harder to see the actual sky”

He pointed to a star to our right somewhere.

“Do you see that one? 

That is Lafayah it translates to either ‘Lonely light’ or ‘Lonely Star’. 

It is named that because there are no other stars near it but it still shines as bright as every other one. 

I like it, it also always points North so if the sky is clear enough you can navigate with it.

Out of all the stars it is my favorite.”

I looked in the direction Fable had pointed at, there was indeed a star hanging alone in the firmament with no other stars even near it.

But it still shone brightly, i could see why he liked it,  it was as lonely as he had been.

I moved to hug him, and this time instead of being so eerily puppet like he actually hugged back.

“I'm sorry for being such an idiot to you before, i should have explained things better, and i'm so Sorry for scaring you like that, i promise i'll never do it again”

“You don't have to apologize, thinking that the entirety of that madness came from your Elven side was only logical, and,  somehow, it stopped me from thinking I was absolutely worthless like our Sire always told me I was.

I think now it is finally time to go and do the things i want,  even if i don't know what that is yet.

Maybe i'll just have to go out there and look, im bound to find something after all”

“What do you mean by that?”

I tilted my head at him in confusion

“That means as soon as im well enough to travel i will leave this place and go see the world and all it has to offer”

He wanted to leave? But he'd only been here for like a week!

“Do you have to? You basically just got here,  you could stay! i don't think anyone would mind”

He shook his head.

"I've only read about the world in books and even though i've traveled here i've seen so little of it,  i want to see all i can, and i can't do that if i stay in one place”

He was right in that,  if he wanted to see the world then he had to move of course.

“Promise you'll visit? After Rikaad is done with the paper stuff I can properly show you Kamerasca!”

He looked at me and smiled, a slightly crooked but genuine smile.

It was unlike the eerie puppet like one he had before.

“I promise i'll visit,  who knows maybe i'll find some interesting trinkets for you”

Stuff from all over the world, having that in my shed sounded nice.

“That would be nice of you, but don't take anything heavy! 

I don't want you to break your back!”

“I won't, don't worry, but maybe I'll also find more of the Ardua,  or at least the Bracelets.

How many are there anyway? Well if i see any i will send them your way”

More Ardua, right, i thought my Bracelet was the only one but that didn't exactly make sense, there were bound to be more.

“No idea, a few at least, I'm pretty sure some got lost throughout time like mine did, but be careful! I don't want you to get injured.

Again”

Fable laughed, actually laughed and the sound reminded me of clear bells.

“I'll be fine, i'm not stupid, and now i know what the Bracelets can do!”

It wasn't the Bracelets though, it was me,  I was the one with the freak anatomy.

I wondered if Fable was still scared, not of me but because of what I did.

“How are you? Aside from your foot i mean”

He tilted his head slightly at me, was he imitating me?

“I'm fine, why do you ask?”

“So… you're not scared?”

He blinked, making his poppy red eyes disappear for a moment.

“Donovan, are you still hung up on what happened in the river?

I can assure you i'm fine, and i'm not scared, not anymore”

Well yeah, he was out of the scary situation,  there was no reason to anymore, but still.

“I just, i don't know, so much had happened and after i found the Bracelet i've been always nervous about people being scared of me.

I can turn into a huge Beast for some reason and i guess i just fear that people will hate me again for being something else than them”

I drew my knees up to my chest and rested my head on one.

“Donovan, are you afraid that I'll hate you after what happened?”

Well that hit the nail on the head, didn't it?

I did THAT thinking he already knew and was fine, and i didn't even ask!

I just LEFT him there for who even knew how long and let him think he was gonna die.

I was a horrible Brother.

“I think some part of me will always be afraid of what people think of me, i'm neither Elven nor Human and with the Bracelet i'm also an Ardua, i won't ever truly belong anywhere i guess”

From how I positioned my head I could only see half of Fable's face,  but I could hear him well enough.

“I think I get at least half of what you mean,  as an Albino im alway looked at strangely.

But I can promise you that I'm not afraid of you, I'll prove it if you want?”

I lifted my head back up again, prove how?

“Prove it? What do you mean? Wait, your not suggesting-”

“What if I am? If that's what it takes to show you that you are not scary then i'll do it”

So, he really just offered to go back in THERE to actually prove he was not afraid of me?

What the hell?

But looking at his face there was not even a trace of fear or doubt,

And he didn't have that puppet-like demeanor to hide it right now.

“I- are you sure? That's a rather, unusual, idea”

“Donovan, alone the fact that you are asking I am sure proves you are a good person, I think you don't have to worry as much as you do.

And yes, i'm sure, it's getting cooler out here anyway”

I sighed, Fable was odd,  well so was I but it looked like he already had his mind set on that so if he wanted to prove that he wasn't scared then so be it.

I slowly stood up, motioning for Fable to keep sitting to keep any strain off his injured limb.

I went a few paces away and kneeled on the ground.

Since I was still bandaged and they wouldn't fit me as Ardua I opted to shift into a Giant instead, after all if my clothes stayed to scale then hopefully my bandages would too.

Just as I had hoped they did stay the same proportions compared to me, and since I was sitting down I didn't reach over the treeline.

I looked down at Fable, who was now so much smaller than me,  and saw he was still sitting there relaxed.

“I was not aware you could be taller than me like this,  though i'm sure the Bracelet counts as cheating”

I laughed at that, right, he'd only seen the fuzzy form and not this one.

But if he was making jokes about it then he was probably still alright.

“I guess so, but with all the bandages i can't exactly change shape on top of height too, not keen on bleeding all over the ground”

Fable nodded still as relaxed as ever.

“Well, the night won't last forever, and I'd rather not have anyone walk by now, we should move this along, don't you think?”

Right, I wasn't keen on having someone see, well all of this really.

“Okay, i'm going to lift you up now,  if you want to back out anytime say so and i'll stop”

I gently extended my hand to him and he heaved himself up without hesitation by grabbing my thumb and using it as a handle.

Well that worked too.

I slowly lifted him up to face level and stopped for a few seconds to give him time to back out.

It was also kinda weird having the man that normally was a good head taller than me sitting in my palm now.

His paleness really gave a weird contrast against the night sky,  He almost looked like a star himself.

When I didn't move for a few seconds he stared expectantly at me and I brought him closer to my face.

Opening my mouth I did my best to hide my teeth with my lips before gently sliding the lanky Elf inside.

I kept it open for a few more seconds in case he wanted to stop.

He did not tell me to stop,  instead I felt him curiously brush his fingers over my palate.

Well now that felt weird.

“You have baby fangs”

What? My fangs were the same size as his! 

Comparatively at least, why would he say that?

And since my mouth was full I couldn't even respond, so instead I slowly closed it, making sure none of his limbs were anywhere near my teeth.

Fable still made no motion of trying to get out or being in the slightest bit scared, he was just laying there.

He was also still poking at my palate since he was laying with his back on my tongue.

I slowly tipped my head farther back and he slid the tiniest amount before his feet dangled over my half closed throat.

Since he was so tall he filled my mouth almost completely so swallowing would be a hurdle.

At least he was lanky instead of buff.

There was still no protest from the pale man so I tipped my head back further and let him slide into my throat where I gave a tentative swallow.

Fable didn't fight it, just continued to be floppy like a tired cat.

In many ways it would have seemed similar to when I had to eat him in the River, but also somehow not.

This time he knew, had suggested it even,  and he was actually calm and not the tense calm from last time.

Swallowing again he slid further down,  Now he was somewhere between my lungs.

Another,  last swallow had him spill into my pouch where he slid around a little.

“Fable?”

I waited with baited breath for his response.

———————————————————————

NEXT / PREVIOUS / OVERSIGHT

[terminaxshowtime]

this is the stupidest question you've ever been asked but how do you analyse music?

aight, well, i don't do anything professionally or anything, all just for fun. usually i focus on the techniques of the music, or certain elements that it has. i was actually taught how to analyze music elements and techniques in class, mainly with identifying structure, rhythms, melody (eg. intervals), harmony/tonality (eg. cadences), and timbre. if i'm just analyzing music for fun, sometimes i'll pick it up by ear and be like 'oh, that's __ cadence, this is fitting for the song because it creates __ effect' or something along those lines. some of them are pretty obvious- like with rhythms, or repetition. for the ones i'm super interested and have to go in-depth to, usually i'll head over to, say, Musescore, search up the sheet music, and try to figure out some of the cadences and intervals myself. if i really want to go deep, i can check out these and associate them with other common uses of the sequences or whatnot, and just kinda make my own personal conclusions as to what the composer was trying to do when they made this. it's always about the messages they're trying to send and whatnot, or sometimes the message is just 'have fun!!!' or keeping the listeners not bored out of their mind.

for analysing music as part of, say, a soundtrack (in my opinion, the best to analyse) i'll focus a bit more on the actual compositional devices. mainly leitmotifs and instrumentation (similar to timbre), because those features can help you understand the story and character of the song. with these, i kind of just pick them up even the first time that i hear it. like, if i recognise a certain pattern, i usually associate it pretty quickly, then i narrow it down to some kinda reason as to why the composer might have done this. it's all connected!!

and if the song i'm analysing has lyrics (rare) i just use the typical English writing analysing techniques on it. with the exception of where certain words would be emphasised through certain chords or cadences in the harmony giving it a different meaning, or as an ornament, in which case i could pack the lyrics together with the musical elements and then analyse it further. so that's a cool thing that i like doing.

i also find that the more diverse a piece, the more interesting and fun it is to analyze, and to an extent, listen to. i think my favourite thing to listen to and analyze would be things with contrast, a lot of range, just something that makes it sound super captivating. which i often find video game ost to have. i highly recommend ost from Kirby games personally ;)

oh, and the stuff i WASN'T taught. okay, so I actually use DAWs and make music myself. i don't post it because i'm self conscious and don't think it's THAT good, but it's probably fine. it's mainly through my own experience through using DAWs that I can figure out what kind of techniques the composers are using for songwriting, mainly through mixing and audio effects- the classic reverb, overdrives, EQs, panning- all my knowledge and ability to judge these comes from my OWN personal experiences with making music and therefore being able to recognise the techniques when i listen. then i can figure out the effect that this technique has and analyse the song and all. so that's the part that was SELF-taught from myself, really.

but anyway. if that didn't answer your question, whoops. i was mainly taught to do a specific type of analysing, and yeah i can analyse it outside of just these techniques- vibes work just fine- but it's kind of hard to explain. 90% of it comes from having knowledge of what the features and effects are, plus my own personal experiences help. i think after you can recognise and NAME the features and techniques, then it's much easier to figure out what the composer was thinking when they made it (ie analyse it.)

erm i rambled way too much. wow. hope this helped???

[seariii]

A condition called love EP 2

..... Huh.....

I see myself a little bit on the mc-Hotaru, in the sense that she is clearly aroace spec....

But now.... Damn....

Like, the guy isn't healthy, and she has never been in love, but this is an anime about learning to love, or so I've heard, so yes.... But.... Even so they're very sweet and kind to each other

... the "trial period" seemed reasonable, seemed understandable... "If I don't fall in love with you, I'd still want you as my friend" "no. I don't want to be your friend, I don't want to be another man in your life" "If we aren't a couple, what will happen to you?" "You won't see me again" ..... I was impressed by that he knows what he wants I thought, my brother thought it was unhealthy, but my mom said that it was the healthiest option... And....

When the friend recommended getting close to each other, as if they were gonna kiss, that that would help her notice if she feels something.... To me it also seemed reasonable, just like to Hotaru.... But when she proposed it, and after the guy said to not let anyone she isn't sure how she feels towards do that to her... I was a little caught off guard.... My mom and my brother both agreed that yeah it wasn't okay for her to ask that, because it would be painful for him if she actually didn't like him... My brother said it stung badly when she asked it.... I was very surprised... I mean... The reasoning behind it was "if you don't like them you'll back off, if you actually like them you won't" a little archaic but to some degree made sense....

I... There is a lot of times where I notice I really don't understand allos... I don't understand how their mind works, how they view the world or certain stuff... On an RP that I have with the bestie, my character, when she felt frustrated at not understanding allos, and at how no one tried to look from her arospec pov, she got told "you wanted a relationship with an allo, right? You have to adapt to that" .... And.... I still think about that sometimes... I don't understand so much stuff... Stuff that comes naturally to others, I have to put effort on understanding... It's kinda frustrating... And I mean, that's not just in romance, there is a lot of stuff that I don't understand... That when I'm told not to do something or something like that, I do as I'm told, but I don't understand the reasoning, why is it wrong?...

I might seem all knowledgeable and like I know what I'm doing, but sometimes I notice how little I actually understand others... How simple stuff that everyone understands I don't... Basic behavior that everyone does or avoids, that I don't know about.... It's frustrating...

I... Try, I search, I ask.... The amount of stuff I've heard that is wrong from my brother is impressive... And the amount of explanations the bestie has given me on why an action is wrong is also massive....

At the end... Both what's happening on the anime and what's going on irl will end up being nice... But.... I do wonder.... If it was selfish of me... Was it wrong of Hotaru to accept that?.... She wanted to learn, to give it a shot, to see if anything happened... She had fun, she tried her best... She even adapted to him.... and he also seemed happy...

....

Well....

I don't know if my past actions were right or wrong... I just... I'll just keep going forward... I like the path that I'm walking... And I can see where I'm going... Even if it takes a little while... Yeah... I want to continue on this path.... And everything seems like it'll fall into place... So we will just... Watch as it happens....

[kquil]

Hello!! Can I have a 🧁? Thnx!

Soo I haven't done this in a while, lol..

I'm shortish at 163cm, curvy and have long auburn curls and amber eyes. You could say I'm a bit cute, but I'm very insecure about my weight, so yeah. Gods this sounds a bit like My Immortal. Moving on.

I'm an extroverted introvert? Like I prefer being alone, but can enjoy good company every once in a while, and sometimes you'd think I like the sound of my own voice a bit too much? I'm all about knowledge and loveeee socio-economic politics etc. I'm a bit stuck up like that I suppose, kinda snobbish tbh. What can I say, I like good quality stuff, like not cheap and think and awfully stitched synthetic fabrics, it doesn't have to be bloody 100% hand spun and made alpaca wool, but cmon, yk? I grew up with a very strict the-curtains-are-never-just-blue kind of mother (french and flute and ballet, and learning the savoir-vivre front-to-back, the whole she-bang, you know the drill). I'm like her more than I'd like to admit, in more ways than one.

I'm a very autonomous person, and hatehatehate depending on others even for the simplest things. I have a lot of patience usually, but improper behaviour and lack of manners will get a rise out of em pretty quickly. I'm a cat person too.

When it comes to PDA, not a fan. I'm shy when it comes to intimacy, but also think it kinda improper.

Love books, hate how most ppl teach stuff- you could call me an independent researcher at soul, but have quite a bit of biases. (Eg, with barely knowing anything about evolutionary psychology, I essentially called it a useless waste to my mentor the other day. I think my exact words were "it seems a bit far fetched to be truthful")

Yea, did I mention I use a lot of brittishisms? I'm not even a brit, English is my second language, idk what the deal is with that.

Also I'm a slytherin, if that wasn't obvious so far. When i first took a test and it said so, I retook it feeding it the proper answers to make me a raven, because, and I quote, "being ambitious is just being smart about how you wanna live your life". Yeah. Still stand by that statement, just have rejected the hp canon and jkr as a whole in the meantime (her horrid ideas too).

I drink my tea an dmy coffee strong and with no sugar nor milk. I love books, and bodies of water (esp the sea!!!), and thunderstorms and greenery. Also ostentatious rose gardens and glass and wrought iron greenhouses and glass domes on indoor gardens etc. Yes, I have my dream mansion sketched out for when I'm rich ever since I was 9ish. I'll just say I need to be filthy rich because it includes a private groove AND lake. I think the word you're searching for by now is "delusional"

I'm a stereotypical Slytherin I think. Even my all-time fave music genre is a tie between classical and jazz (though I do love rock and punk too)

This is getting too long, so I hope it's enough! Thanks in advance!!!

PS I have two names, the first of which is horrid, but means Sapphire One, and I go by my second, Alexandra. Much too ostentatious to have both of these, I know, but I quite like "Alexandra".

wow! truly a slytherin through and through haha! thank you so much for requesting darling, im sorry it took so long for me to deliver on and i don't know if this is up to your standards but i did my best!

I ship you with sirius black 

i. in actuality, you two started off as enemies and eventually became lovers, growing up together since young from very prominent slytherin families only to be sorted in rival houses instead. it didn’t take until 6th year for the two of you to blossom a romance with each other, it was after reaching an understanding of each other’s personal difficulties growing up that the two of you grew close, slowly growing closer until you made it official. sirius became the person to balance you out and him, you. you both learned to be better people through each other. 

ii. sirius loved how independent you were but also loved getting a rise out of you by being annoying, he loved getting your attention through that, knowing that you loved him too much to really sink your teeth into him, unlike the unlucky people he’s seen get a tongue lashing from you — he is not envious of them. he likes knowing that he can get away with things around you whereas other couldn’t, it made him feel special and, although you knew what he was up to, you always indulged him anyway. one thing you loved about him was that he made you feel so confident and loved, to the point where the insecurities you had of your body and appearance just disappeared because he loved everything about you, every good point, every star quality, every flaw…he loved those about you the best. 

iii. he’s the one who slowly eases you into soft PDA, he knows you aren’t going to be the type to make out in front of people or sit in his lap blatantly when in a group setting but he wants to always be holding your hand or have his hand on your waist or play with your beautiful auburn hair. he loves whispering his admiration for you into your ear when you least expect it as well, some times he’d speak it in french just to add that additional touch of romance to it. 

iv. he understands your love for ostentatious things, the two of you are common in that regard. and, being someone who took pride in everything he did, he was sure to shower you in all the opulence you were willing to receive. at some point in your relationship, he had acquired the perfect balance of gift giving to keep things special between you two without it being too in-the-face of others. he would take you on these really grand dates, get-aways, if you will, where the two of you indulge in all your favourite things as well as his, sharing and making memories together. He wants you to always be surrounded by beauty, because that’s what you deserve and you appreciate him so much for it. 

v. he knows how to make you your tea and coffee and you know how to make his, he knows what books you like to read and the music you enjoy and you know the same for him — the two of you are equal in that you share your interests and act on them for each other. in the beginning, you felt as though your ideal life one day were just delusions but he promises and made those delusions a reality for you. he loved that you knew exactly what you wanted and he delivered on every wish as best he could because he would do anything for his princess

1K MILESTONE EVENT : CLOSED | NAVI.