#can't go back and do more work

[allroseshave-their-pricks]

How did your defense go?!

It’s tomorrow morning, anon! I’ll give you updates after I’m done, haha

[naamahdarling]

You know what? You know what I think?

I think that if we lived as we were meant to, in larger intimate ("extended family") groups and with more shared labor and time to do it (UBI NOW) people like me would not feel so useless and burdensome because there would be people around to help and to do what neurodivergent people can't while making valuable space for the neurodivergent to do what they ARE good at.

The way we live right now, all right, the way we live right now forces units of two adults to be able to do EVERYTHING or PAY to have someone come do it for them. I have to do the housework. I have to do it! But I am having to do a million different things and most of them I am not good at. I suck at them.

I wouldn't feel like shit, okay, if I had more than one other person around who was not a child and who could do the things I can't, like do the yard and cook and do repairs and basic maintenance; and someone else to split everything else that I like but is too much for me. It would free me to do what I am good at and enjoy. Cleaning, as in the sink and toilet, the windows, the blinds. Taking out trash. Folding, hanging, and sorting laundry.

But because all the shit I can do often relies on other shit being done first, and I can't do or have trouble doing those things, the shit I can do often can't be done. And even the shit I can do, I can't do ALL of it. So I can't keep up, and things get very bad.

We aren't meant to live like this. We are not meant to live like this.

That thought hurts so much because being able to flee the birth family is integral to survival for so many people. I'm so afraid that living in larger family groups would create more opportunities for, say, queer kids to be isolated, rejected, bullied, and abused. But if we gave people enough money to survive, and stopped considering children the property of their parents with no system in place to help them escape bad situations except a system that is often just as bad, just different.

I'm aware that communes and collectives aren't all that successful and are kind of a joke. I don't mean that. I mean a fundamental shift to multigenerational families where taking in "strays" (which my family did) is also normalized so people escaping abuse into existing households was accepted, with these families centered in maybe a couple of different larger residences so not everyone has to buy and maintain their own fucking washing machine and vacuum cleaner, and so people can benefit from large group meals that yield leftovers, and so child and elder care can also be centralized.

Then disabled people and the neurodivergent and sick and injured people, and pregnant people, and grieving people, would not have to either labor through all those stressors or consign themselves to living off an unlivable pittance or being put under legal guardianship.

I'm not saying anything new. People live like this in other parts of the world and maybe it sucks and I am wrong. But I'm just really mad right now because I can either do laundry or clean the sink but not both, and I really think we could improve society somewhat by making it so I did not have to choose one without sacrificing the other.

[starcurtain]

Just caught up with Natlan's archon quest and lord help me, I have a burning need to see Alhaitham and Ororon interact.

I truly feel that they would vibe perfectly. Not in a ship way, but like, in the way of Kaveh quietly wailing: "For archons' sake, he's brought another tacky thing into the house. Traveler, please do something; they've been staring eye to eye over the coffee table for like an hour now but haven't said a single word. I don't know what to do. Send help."

[deoidesign]

Time and Time Again comes back tonight!

Thank you all for being so patient with me, I know it was a long hiatus.

My health was struggling, my arm was (is) hurting, and I decided it wasn't worth it. I'd rather be slow!

So thank you for giving me that grace, and I hope you'll be there with me for the rest of the series.

[anewp0tat0]

this is not one of the like 5 video projects I'm supposed to be finishing, this is an animatic meme that I'm pretty sure is still going around which I didn't wanna miss like last time I missed an animatic meme(it still sits in my WIP folder. it's been 3 years) so yes that's why it exists. and also because I'm kinda shocked I haven't seen it yet. sorry if it HAS been made.

[dykedvonte]

Can you talk about trans!Curly a little bit more? I'm curios if you have any headcanons and the like

-💀

It's just such a thing in my mind because it adds a truthful sadness and differing aspect to mouthwashing.

If Curly was trans it adds the horror of the horribly selfish thought he could have easily been in Anya's situation. It could've been him but it wasn't and he so conflicted on the pit it put in his stomach that brings and the shameful relief it wasn't. In this scenario he is friends with Jimmy for a long time still. Jimmy likely knew him pretransition. Maybe he gave Curly weird looks then, maybe they never stopped after, maybe they seemed meaner. They are guys now, bros, both of them are. He doesn't really have to worry what those looks mean anymore, Jimmy just has that face with him sometimes. It's recontextualizing a lot of things for him that he was in denial about or too ashamed to admit. How naive he was being and how he let that get another person hurt.

Specifically with Anya, it's he knows the dread and fear she's feeling. He can understand it because he had to live with it for a good portion of his life, he knows it cause he still does, just in a slightly different way. It makes him think of all the times he's been alone with Jimmy, all the times he's been way more drunk off his ass and not remember the night, Jimmy was always with him the next day. Makes him think of the comments he would laugh off both because that's what guys do but because that part of being a girl says to laugh so Jimmy doesn't do something. It's the selfish realization that he was never safe and he's uncertain now too. Mad at himself for forgeting that feeling, espcially since for a long time he would've been considered the only woman on a crew (with all that implies) for a long time.

He should've taken those blinders off, step back into that position for just a moment and it's so much more painful that Anya likely came to him because he should've gotten it. Those thoughts don't leave his mind after the crash when he's in an even more vulnerable position than she was...

[elzorton]

Richard II

[faislittlewhiteraven]

Been having some ISaT tech level and timeline (as in 'when backstory things happened') thoughts and want to ramble a bit:

Tech

ISaT's setting is based on your classic sword and sorcery fantasy JRPG so its easy to assume that tech wise everything is 'fantasy medieval' and call it a day but consider:

Body Craft is at bare minimum is magic sex changing surgery (earliest known equivent in our world dating to 1930) that any old person can learn to do safely on themselves in only a few months, and more likely has many many broader applications like regular old surgery, the 'combat healing' Mira and Sif use, etc.

Cameras and photos are rare enough that Odile comments on it (namely she's happy the group get a photo in the House due to them being 'so rare') yet are also common enough that everyone in the party knows about them and doesn't question the existence of a camera beyond being surprised that the mirror was one. (In our world cameras date back to the 19th century, with the earliest manufacturing of them being in 1839). 

Printing presses and ways to make plenty of paper to feed those presses given absolutely everyone in this game can read, expects everyone else to know how to, and both mass produced book series and newspapers are a thing. (Note: Printing presses have existed since waaaay back but it's the mass paper manufacturing that makes newspapers and The Cursing of Chateu Castle possible that really has my eyebrows raised here, especially since neither Siffrin or Odile find either odd in any way, indicating such things are common everywhere, and while newspapers have been around since 1604 in our world, mass produced fantasy books didn't really take off until the start of the 20th century).

Food production and storage: despite being in the middle of a national disaster that almost certainly cut off trade networks and access to most suppliers for literal months now, Bonnie, a small child, is able to easily get their hands on fresh Pineapple, curry ingredients (for samosa), potatoes, plantains etc with no issues or anyone commenting on this being unusual or lucky. Oh and the only character who even brings up the concept of potential starvation is the Fishing One, and only in a sort of 'we're not at risk now but sooner or later...' kinda way due to noticing that the fish they fish up for fun are disappearing and likely being frozen. So yeah, that heavily implies Vaugarde has very good food storage tech/Craft (possibly better than ours), and likely also good food production and harvesting tech/skills also.

The Island's incredible knowledge of the stars: while the oldest known orrery in our world is dated from around 205 to 87 BC (ancient Greek, earth centric model), the fact Sif -who would've learnt this as a child/teen- is so very certain that stars are big balls of fire made up of gas is interesting as that's something our world couldn't prove the theory of until around the 1900s (note: it'd been theorized a LONG time but Sif talks like its complete facts to them . Additionally the earliest existing record of a telescope in our world dates to a 1608 patent and we see one of those in game.

Post posting EDIT: A wonderful user qds-place pointed out that Mirabelle has anti-anxiety medication in her room. This is in both ISaT and SAaP and though we're not sure what form the medication takes (pills? Valium? Megitech esc Craft boosters???) the fact they specifically have 'anti anxiety' medication at all (as opposed to idk dragging Mira off and drugging her through the gills) is kind of impressive and if it IS modern anti anxiety pills those could be as recent in creation as the 1950s! So um. Some high levels of tech implied in chemistry there <3

So... yeah. All this, plus the fact that the highest tech implied area, The Island, literally specialised in the study/Craft of turning wishes into reality (for a long enough time period that Wish Craft is culturally so ingrained in the King and Sif that they do it without thinking and it seems intertwined with their nation's religion) has been completely erased from memory to the point anything heavily associated with them has been forgotten, and also we only ever see Dormont aka a little village well away from the cities, it's not hard to conclude that you can basically justify giving the ISaT world any level of tech you want, so long as you lock any of the truly 'setting breaking' stuff like planes and rockets behind The Island's forgetting curse (I would've said trains too but thinking about it trains were invented in 1802 so it's honestly easy to imagine that they totally exist in the ISaT setting/Vaugarde but aren't ever on screen because rail is way too dangerous to consider using while the Curse is active and potentially time freezing things on the tracks).

Side note: We know absolutely nothing about Vaugarde's transport system but as a fan of fantasy RPGs it is honestly a travesty I have yet to see a fic that has flying dragons/wyverns or other fantasy mounts in setting. Like, ok yes, the party would probably have wanted to use those but maybe they don't like the Curse and fled? Maybe the King's Curse targeted them first? Maybe all their handlers dropped the heroes off in Dormont and said 'Well Saviors it's been fun, but well me and Scales here are off to Poteria until things wrap up so best of luck to you' before buggering off?

This isn't really a serious complaint just. Me reminding myself/potentially other fanwork writers out there that there's a lot about the setting we just don't know about and limiting all travel to walking, horse drawn carriage and boat is not actually required. (Also please mix up travelling to the Island. Boats are a wonderful classic and have great thematic vibes for Sif's original leaving of the Island but like. Imagine the sheer in-universe wtf of the memories of The Island suddenly coming back and people on the north coast suddenly realising there's a massive bridge, subway or underwater tunnel leading there that everyone just forgot about - potentially filled with all kinds of Sadnesses that need taking down. Or Warp Panels in a House of Change, idk XD).

Timeline

Canon notes first:

Bonnie is a preteen (8 to 12), Mira and Isa are in their early to mid 20s (with Isa slightly older), Sif is late 20s to 30, and Odile is 40+ Nille is stated to be around 18 to 20.

Siffrin ran away from home when they were a teenager (13 to 17? 18?) and this is heavily implied to be when the Island was Forgotten.

Bonnie (in ISaT specifically*) says that Nille told them that when it happened all the adults were talking about it, hence why they think The Island is close to their village. *In Start Again a Prologue, Bonnie says that they themself remember the adults talking about the Island disappearing, which er. Is a bit impossible given they likely weren't even born yet when that happened but that can be explained away by AU differences, InsertDisc5 still finalising details between SAaP and ISaT, and/or OG Siffrin having been in the loops so long they weren't actually listening when Bonnie was talking and just 'scripted' in their head something 'close enough' to what Bonnie was saying to get the idea (note: mentioned that idea before in my post here on the differences between the House and King in Start Again vs In Stars and Time for anyone curious so er please feel free to give that a read if you haven't already).

Odile mentions remembering 'when it happened' as well and has been 'travelling for years'.

The King 'appeared out of nowhere' sometime in his adulthood, and lived in the city of Corbeaux for a few years before he became the King.

The King became the King as was freezing people in time long enough before his attack on the House of Dormont that everyone inside knew he was coming, there were a wall's worth of newspaper articles about him, and everyone was expecting Euphrasie to defeat him.

Mirabelle's quest began 'almost a year ago' and Sif lost their eye 'recently'.

Thoughts on the above:

Calculating when The Island was forgotten:

Sif being mid 20s to 30 and having run away from home as a teen means that The Island has to have been forgotten somewhere between 9 to 17 years ago with nine only possible if he ran away at age 17 and is only age 26 now, and seventeen being the far opposite if he ran at age 13 and is currently 30.

To narrow down the timeline: Given Sif ran away from home because he 'didn't want to eat his veggies' and 'just wanted to scare [his] parents a little bit' it's probably safe to assume Siffrin was likely on the younger end of the teen spectrum (teens run off all the time sure but with loving parents and over veggies? That screams 'kid who has not yet learned that freaking out the parents will get their ass grounded and/or yelled at a LOT and is therefore best saved for doing fun forbidden stuff that ideally the parents will never find out about' XD) Additionally given Siffrin can't remember his age/birthday etc but Isabeau outright says near the beginning of the game "But you're older than most of the people here?" meaning Sif must be visibly older than Isa or Mira, so he's probably closer to 30 than not.

Those alone would imply the Island likely disappeared closer to the '17 years ago' side of things BUT Nille (tops 20 years old) told Bonnie that "[the Island's disappearance] was all the adults would talk about for ages" and kids usually can't remember anything prior to 4 years of age so with that in mind...

I'd say The Island most likely disappeared between 13 to 16 years ago.

Nille stuff:

This is more a general mention but. Nille is tops 20 years old. Bonnie is between 8 and 12 and doesn't remember their parents at all.

This means Nille ran away with Bonnie and gained emancipation and custody of Bonnie (if Vaugarde has formalised that kind of legal stuff) while she was at most 12 years old herself and could have in theory been as young as 6..!

Regardless, it's very likely the original home situation was that bad, Nille deserves a ton of credit for raising Bonnie as well as she has and I'd say it's very VERY likely she had a lot of help from villagers in Bambosche and/or the local House of Change in doing so. ...But also Bonnie is very adamantly 'my sister and village' and not 'my sister and [specific names who live with us]' so there's clearly by the time Bonnie was 4 or so they were living in their own place so... Yeah. Lotta drive for independence there too it seems (so the party might have more trouble adopting Nille into their group post ISaT than Bonnie might expect).

King stuff:

Already an adult 13 to 16 years ago so at bare minimum 33. Given his vibe probably much older though.

Newspapers get printed pretty quick though for there to be so much speculation and research done into his background so quick, either Vaugarde has some form of fast messaging system (something like a Chappe telegraph on top of the Houses of Change? Odile I think does mention that they'll have a message sent to let Nille know they'll be returning Bonnie...) or the King was freezing stuff for IDK around a month or two before reaching Dormont? Alas can't find out how long it takes to walk across all of France out very easily (I'm sure the numbers are out there but my brain is pudding rn) but if we had those numbers we could probably make some guesstimates based off the rough sketched map of Vaugarde InsertDisk5 did... Which I would link but apparently the tumblr post I had it linked on has been deleted???? 'wails at this very unhappy development'

Mira's journey and Sif's eye:

We really don't know a lot but almost a year ago gives us somewhere around 9 to 11 months to spread the journey out along and after eye removal surgery the patient can out and about as soon as 2 to 6 weeks after, maybe sooner with magic healing (though full recovery/growing used to the changed spacial awareness -which Sif clearly does not have- probably can't be sped up and takes around 3 to 6 months) so um. I'd guestimate Sif's eye injury is really recent; like two months ago tops recent. ...Which sorta explains a lot of why Bonnie is not dealing with it right now and also why the others might be trying to avoid bringing it up (since Sif clearly loves avoiding the issue but they haven't yet realised that maybe they really should bring it up even if it annoys them anyway?)

Odile with some Ka Bue speculation:

When it comes to The Island, how did Odile, presumably living in Ka Bue at the time, remember 'when it happened'? Was the Island well known enough even on the other side of the world that it's disappearance made waves? Or was Odile herself or someone she's close to paying attention to the region? (Like maybe her dad or a friend is/was into politics or trade, keeping up with overseas news and got concerned it could happen to Ka Bue? I'd say 'I remember when it happened' line implies it was more immediate knowledge than being informed by a messenger much later though...)

As for Odile's 'years of travel' I have to wonder, what's left behind for her in Ka Bue? She brings up going back there quite a bit, might just miss home and possibly her father if he's still alive, but given it took her years to get here for something so personal rather than idk 'materially rewarding' I think Odile might have some kinda family estate or something back in Ka Bue... Something she wasn't worried about potentially losing while far away, but solid enough to want to return to, beyond her father who she'd definitely want to see again if he's still around. (...But given how open she is to chilling about Vaugarde a few more months with the others, I really don't think he is alive, since well, given their respective ages and travel between Vaugarde and Ka Bue apparently taking years, there'd definitely an uncomfortably high chance of him passing away while she's gone and that seems like the thing that'd stress Odile out so... Yeah. Probably got an estate in Ka Bue she'd like to take the Family to visit/possibly sell off if she decides she'd like to live with them in Vaugarde so... Just my off the cuff headcanoning here and hoping that gives others ideas or something).

---

Anyway that's all the ramble I've got in me so... yeah! Hope this was interesting and useful for those needing a bit of a 'possible tech'/timeline calcs breakdown for the Island + a few more vague things and um. Probably will post a long winding ramble about my attempt at a ISaT Selkie AU fic I've been working on next <3 (Not to be confused with looped-140-and-counting's already existing and quite wonderful Selkie Siffrin AU which already has a completed oneshot fic, a snippet of sequel, two snippets of prequel/Sif flashbacking and I believe a comic too, all of which I highly recommend <3)

[fortes-fortuna-iogurtum]

I've been reading Exodus lately and I've just gotten to the portions where God gives the first commands to the people via Moses (twice), and then goes on to give detailed instructions about the tabernacle and how it should be built, and I'm just... we think art is unimportant?? we think things only mean as much as their functionality?? we so easily fall into the trap of believing that beauty means nothing, that it's cheap and only worth whatever mindless distraction it brings, that it's barely more than a cheap sensual thrill, that buildings should just be practical and plain and cheap, that everything should be functional but ultimately disposable, that paintings and dresses and mugs and curtains and carpets are just pretty but have no real value, that beauty is fleeting and vain and therefore shouldn't be thought about too much, if even looked for at all... we fall into these traps so easily, and we forget that there are chapters upon chapters of painstakingly detailed plans to build one portable worship tent, and those plans have been handed down through thousands of years of human history, because beauty and art and skill in craft is important

[idalenn]

To reach The unreachable star

[agalychnisspranneusroseus]

Imagine you're Mr. Wu and your weird gay daughter runs away in tears after destroying some unespecified object while yelling about you ruining her life. Because you told her you'd be moving to another state. This is the last time you see your daughter in half a year, and when she comes back, she comes back... wrong. She's wearing a light leather armor, a fur-lined cape, and a green flower crown. She has two long scars, one alongside her spine and the other along her chest, the tissue around them covered in burn scars. Doctors say she shouldn't have survived. Doctors say she didn't. Yet she's right here, in front of you, hospital gown clinging to her small, fragile, trembling frame. She fidgets with her hands. Getting her to stay still has always been difficult, but now it seems impossible. She won't let go of her phone. She's always texting her two friends. When you take it away, she gets anxious. You always knew those damn phones cause kids to act weird, but your kid having a panic attack seems too extreme, even for her. Then again, she's always been odd. Nowadays, she wakes up crying and screaming almost every night, and you realize she's been stealing her phone from your bedside drawer every night to text her friends, returning it before you wake up. You catch her once and decide to give her that damn phone back. It's the only thing that calms her down, as if she were a baby with a pacifier. She spends her last weeks in LA clinging to her friends, having sleepovers and playing her weird board games with them. Everytime they drop her back at her house, there's an excessive amount of hugs and tears. But the moments when they call her, or when she leaves to meet with them, or when they show up at their door to pick her up... those are the only moments in which you see her happy. One of her friends, the rude and disobedient one, came back with a big scar on her face. She's been acting a lot nicer, though. The other one too. She acts a great deal more adult now. You doesn't know what happened or where your daughter went. She won't tell you. But you can tell this friendship is the only thing keeping her afloat right now. Maybe you know, deep down, that no one else would understand.

And then you decide to move anyway because fuck her amirite

[deoidesign]

quick traditional piece for fun ^^

[ozonecologne]

.

[swampbangle]

Brain decided it wanted to tell me a raw ass Dusknoir line so I had to get out of bed to make this at 3am.

Ouughg my wrist hurt

[mari-lair]

Do you think you could handle having an ask blog the specific sifless loops au?

Probably not, my inbox has never been this full before and this isn't even a purely ask blog??

[starcurtain]

I feel like I should be paid a dollar every time someone claims Aventurine is being held in "golden handcuffs" by the IPC.

Like, I promise people that phrase does not mean what you think it means.

Please... save me...