#checked back

[ebonydraygon]

So it's been a bit of a year... I'm fairly sure someone left a monkey's paw around somewhere, and I tripped over it by accident. That and getting a shiny new diagnosis of Crohn's Disease (does not make you an actual crone, that is a lifestyle choice, not an autoimmunity condition). As such I'm going to be very gentle to myself with these.

Creatively

Complete two writing projects

Technically? I finished the long form Gloryhammer fanfic I have been plugging away at for the last few nanos, as well as a few one-shots. I also did a bunch of writing work for larp but like my nano this year, it was hampered by my new health condition flaring up.

sew a piece of clothing for myself or Ben

Didn't manage this, though I did make a pretty hooded caplet for a friend! And have stuff together to make actual clothing things for people next year! Closest to a clothing piece I made would be a white plague doctor mask I made for Ben. It apparently needs more ventilation holes...

rework a cosplay

Not managed this year... though I suppose I am working on a new one, which is made via reworking an existing dress. Does that count?

Personally

eat more regularly/healthily

I'll just settle for actually eating at least once a day. Again, Crohn's is not a fun one when it comes to digestion and eating.

post progress pics more often

Semi managed! I managed to get into the habit of taking pictures of my work after each stream. Mostly at least. So my discord server has regular updates! Now for all my other media accounts...

support other crafters more

I like to think that I did actually do this. I certainly made a number of friends in the twitch crafting community, and I'm recognised by them in turn. I may also be very bad for throwing plushies at them, though that is mainly because I like giving people things...

General

Leave the house more

So funny story... at the start of the year, whilst I was in hospital, our washing machine broke. Thankfully, we have some really lovely friends who have a washing machine and a dryer. Which has meant we make weekly trips over the city with a bag or few of laundry and to hang out. Its leaving the house! It counts!

sort and clear spare room

Again, I've made progress, my fabric is all sorted, I've even started trying to remove the mould from the walls. Next steps are dismantling the old bed in there and giving it to our Pathfinder DM and then getting a new loft bed in there. Progress!

Get to the stage where we can get a cat!

One day!

This year has been a hard one. Most of it is finding a new balance with my diagnosis, as well as trying to get it under control. It has meant I have been more exhausted and it's let things slip. But over all, I am proud of what I have achieved despite it!

Highlights of the year include getting to stay in a castle for a week, discovering a new craft joy in cross stitch and medal making! Plus the joy when I made a bunch of medals for the local nanowrimo group and handed them out to people before November began. That joy is why I love crafting (and why I had to be bullied into actually selling them rather than just giving it away all the time). Plus getting to meet a bunch of my partner's online friends at last!

Tune back January 1st for the new resolution list and the thank you list for those that kept me going through the previous year.

[batcavescolony]

Katniss is such an unreliable narrator. She says "Then something unexpected happens. At least, I don't expect it because I don't think of District 12 as a place that cares about me" girl you deliver strawberries to the Mayor, you hunt and trade for the district, when you fell at Prim being chosen someone caught you, when you went to Prim people parted for you, when you volunteered EVERYONE stopped. Idk how to tell you but I think you're a pillar of the community.

[ochibrochi]

🌻 comm for gee! thank you 💖

[ahhrenata]

he’s the reason i fell in love with Star Wars.

slightly animated version on instagram :)

[prlssprfctn]

Jason Todd arrives to the Gotham after being brought back alive for the first time, and while building up his career as Red Hood, visits Harvey Dent in the Arkham. They talk in a surprising peace, discuss this and this, and Jason even shares some of his insane ass lore, because, honestly, who is going to believe Harvey Dent?

And no one doesn't.

But there is a problem. The next time Bruce Wayne visits Harvey, Harvey randomly drops a bomb on him by saying that he is so, so glad that their Jaylad is back, and he grew up so much, looks so much like Bruce now! He even tries to assure him that, you see, yeah, Jason was dead, but he crawled out of his grave, and then, the Lazarus Pit fixed him!

Bruce thinks Harvey finally had reached the end of his line. Like, low-key, the last stage of insanity.

Harvey: God, he is still so well-mannered. I feel so pleased that he came to visit old me first, though. I always thought I was his favourite over you.

Bruce, laughing awkwardly, while asking the medics to add some new medicine to Harvey: Ahaha, yeah, that sounds like our Jaylad.

Harvey: Super happy for him, seriously. I mean, look at him, getting himself a new career as a Red Hood. That's our son. Feel a little bit bitter that he is into Al Ghuls family now, but that's fine.

Bruce, frowning, because Harvey isn't supposed to know about Al Ghuls and their connection to Lazarus Pit or about Red Hood: Uh, had J-Jason said something else to you?

Harvey: Oh, damn, we spoke for the whole night. He was pissed at you, though. Like, for the Tim guy, whoever he is.

Bruce, turning to the doctors: ...Maybe, uh, give me the same pills you gave him. I feel like I need it, too.

[wedielikemen]

TGR SPOILERS

Jean looks dead into Andrew's eyes and tells him that he won't be fast enough to save Neil the next time someone takes a swing because of his smoking.

How cruel it must have felt to be on his knees just 3 WEEKS later - collarbone shattered watching while Neil was curled in on himself at the end of a racquet from another Raven and Andrew too slow to stop it ?!

Anyway the next time we see him with a cigarette he's crushing it in his fist.

[yooo-lets-go]

Wish you were here

[frownyalfred]

hey just for the record, if you’re on r/ao3 and keep running into these kinds of comments on bookmark related posts — it’s not a good take. calling someone’s writing “slop” and saying it deserves criticism for being bad BECAUSE it’s posted publicly might seem like a nuanced take, but I promise it isn’t.

yes, sometimes us writers get a little too obsessed over a cryptic comment or bookmark; no, that doesn’t actually mean the solution is to say whatever you want in them because authors “deserve” your honesty. 

I know we’re in a touchy time for readers and writers, but comments like these are NOT kind, refreshing, or nuanced. they’re just kind of mean and discouraging.

[buggachat]

Part 183 of my bakery “enemies” au!

I'M BACK AND READY FOR DAILY UPLOADS!!!

First / Prev / Next / All

Kofi

[shadowtraveled]

"mithrun is the only real monsterfucker in dungeon meshi" is objectively the funniest bit you can get out of his everything, but in all seriousness i think his attraction to his love interest is deliberately overstated—and that makes sense, because romantic jealousy is a classic and digestible motive, which is explicitly what kabru was aiming for in condensing mithrun's backstory, and also because until chapter 94, mithrun wasn't willing to admit to the true nature of his desires.

but because romantic envy is both classic and digestible, it probably isn’t a unique enough or complicated enough desire to tempt a demon’s appetite. mithrun’s wish, as far as we can figure from kabru’s reduced retelling, was to have a life in which he had never become one of the canaries, and that carries like 3857 implications and desires within it. that’s delicious. his love interest acts as sort of a red herring to his motivation for making it, though. (side note: i'm saying "love interest" here because, keeping in mind that i barely speak japanese on a good day anymore, "想い人" is something i'd usually take as just kind of an old-fashioned and romantic way to refer to a lover, but in context i wonder if both the connotation of yearning and the vagueness are intentional, and i think this phrasing gets those aspects of it more effectively. anyway.)

mithrun considered his love interest to be untrustworthy. there was a minute where i thought that comment might be about a similar-looking elf (yugin, one of his squad members), but comparing the two…

the "sketchy" arrow is definitely referring to the elf we know as his love interest—the bangs go toward her right, she only has the one forehead ornament, and, most notably, her ears aren't notched.

every time she’s given a full-body depiction in his dungeon, she’s drawn as a chimera, with the body of a snake from the waist down. (side note: the “what if a dungeon has chimeras before reaching level 4?”/“then the dungeon lord is unstable” exchange just being mithrun grilling his past self alive is so funny. he’s so. but anyway) there are a couple things about this.

first, the snake part of the chimera appears to be modeled after some species of coral snake mimic

which, in the biology-for-fun manga, i… doubt is a coincidence, especially with the added context of the “untrustworthy” comment. the dungeon’s conjured illusion of mithrun’s love interest was a harmless copycat of a venomous original. for whatever reason, he felt this person was a threat and made up a "safe" version of her to be in a relationship with, and while it’s definitely possible to be attracted to or even love someone you find to be toxic and/or intimidating, when you take that into consideration alongside the configuration of her body, you get some interesting implications.

which brings us to our second point: if we assume that mithrun was not in fact fucking a snake, then sexual attraction, at least, was so far removed from his idea of a relationship with this person that he did not even bother to keep her dungeon copy human enough to maintain the illusion of the option of a sexual relationship. this is somewhat echoed in the depictions of their interactions, which also imply a frankly unexpected romantic distance. she kisses his cheek and he doesn't seem to react; she's at the edge of a narrow bed with only one set of pillows, on top of his blankets while he's underneath them.

the kiss is particularly interesting because it seems to contrast the text. kabru's narration tells us this was everything mithrun could have asked for, but mithrun is there looking unreadable to pensive, likely because this is right before the panel that makes it clear things in the dungeon are beginning to go wrong.

walking through this backwards for a minute, we have the physical barrier of his bedding and the spatial separation inherent in a bed made for one person, the emotional barrier of his mounting anxiety getting in the way of his ability to enjoy the affection he sought, and... the snake, which historically carries the connotation of temptation, yes, but also mistrust, barring physical intimacy. okay. ok. if a dungeon reflects the mentality of its lord, all of this might suggest that mithrun was not able to have any real desire for a relationship with this person. his unwillingness to be vulnerable or let another person in was insurmountable. but in that case, why was she such a focal point that she remained to the end, after his dungeon had stopped creating iterations of his friends to come and visit him? why would he get so upset over her meeting with his brother that he became lord of a dungeon about it?

well. mithrun's brother was also interested in her, probably genuinely. and mithrun had to win.

you have an older brother who your parents completely ignore, probably in part because he is chronically ill/disabled and almost definitely in part because he received a ton of recessive traits that resulted in rumors that he was an illegitimate child. you are aware, most likely because those same parents fucking told you, that you actually are an illegitimate child. but they keep you around because you had the good fortune of looking just like your mother. what can that possibly teach you but that you, like your brother, are disposable?

it's utterly unsurprising that mithrun, under these circumstances, developed a pathological need to be better than everyone around him. people don't keep you otherwise. i'd argue this is also why he says he looked down on everyone he knew while milsiril claims his dungeon reeked of feelings of inferiority—he sought out people's worst traits and prioritized them in his mind to protect his already extremely fragile sense of self-worth, and all the while he tried to be as likable and high-performing as he possibly could be. his parents disposed of him anyway, but even then he tried to keep up the performance. he was kind to everyone. he never once lost to a dungeon.

when he saw his "love interest" meeting up with his brother, what he saw was himself being replaced by a person his parents had always treated as worthless, and if that was what they thought of the child they'd kept, what value could anyone possibly see in the bastard they'd given away to die? mithrun and kabru tell the story like he wanted to win this unnamed elf's heart, but it was never about being with her. it was about cementing his worth, proving that he didn't deserve to be thrown away.

and so it's particularly cruel that his demon discarded him, too. but maybe it's also particularly gentle that, in the end, there was someone who refused to even consider giving up on him.

kui laid it out in three panels better than i could hope to.

yeah. it's love. you wanted to be loved, even when the only way you were able to understand it was through the desire to be wanted, and you wanted that so badly that the idea of being consumed felt like the promise of finally mattering to someone.

[ebonydraygon]

So the last year has had its ups and downs, learning to fully live with my miriade of autoimmune conditions, losses of long term gaming groups and friends with that... well lets jsut say I am going to take it easy on myself when it comes to reviewing my goals for the year.

Creatively

complete one large cross stitch project

I did achieve this!

It may not seem a 'big' project to those that do cross stitch regularly but it is for me!

Write something outside of Nanowrimo

Also completed! In fact, I finally finished and posted a fanfic that I was working on for the past three nanos.

Complete at least two digital art pieces

This one... less so. Mainly due to ill health, I haven't' done any big digital pieces. I have however done smaller projects, such as silly marshmallows and the ongoing Silly Sharks project

Personally

Keep on top of laundry

This was hampered by the fact our washing machine died again and it wasn't until late in the year that we finally got a working replacement. But now we have a washer-dryer so we are now starting to chip down the mountains much quicker!

post progress pics more often

haaa yeah. I didn't manage to do this on social media beyond my personal discord server, but that is still progress!

keep more consistent stream and shop schedule

I like to think, barring the extraneous circumstances like health and life events, I have managed this quite well!

General

Attend at least one nanobeans meeting outside of November

I didn't even manage to get to one in november! But hey, I have more free time now so maybe I'll manage...

sort spare room so it is a viable guest room

Due to the larp I was running suddenly imploding and then having all the props and kit from that to get rid of... this is still a work in progress.

Get to the stage where we can get a cat!

One day! I did get to go to a cat café and visit parents to see their two cats, so I have at least had some cat this year.

As mentioned above, this year has thrown me some nasty curveballs. The Larp I had been running suddenly imploded around May/June-ish when the other Narrator suddenly up and quit with no warning, causing half our meagre player base to also quit. So we had to fold the group, and then I was left to try and clean up the remains. IT was something that had been a staple of my life for the last six years, basically a volunteer job with how much work I did. So it has taken time to rebalance myself with its loss. Plus, there aren't really any non-com friendly larps in my immediate area that interest me. So it's not like I can easily replace it.

Highlights of the year were probably finally posting up Dark Waltz, a Gloryhammer AU fanfic as well as attending Kitacon at Warrick uni. I even ran my first convention event which was well attended, and I had people asking if I would run it again for longer next time! So that is something I will have to keep in mind!

Tune back January 1st for the new resolution list and the thank you list for those that kept me going through the previous year.

[egophiliac]

So.... what are your thoughts on Ace's UM, if you haven't been asked this already?

sneaky magic for the sneakiest boy

no but really, I think it fits him really well! I had thought his UM would probably involve something kinda sleight-of-handy or pickpockety! and I looooved that it made such a nice loop-around back to episode 1. ❤️ I was. kind of half-expecting him to just run out and punch Riddle in the nose again. but instead this time 'twas he who offed the queen's head! it was great! and he did it while stone-cold terrified out of his mind! because Ace is the only remotely normal or well-adjusted person at NRC and therefore the only one who is like "we're going to literally die, this is super effed up". but he did it anyway!!!! I AM SO PROUD

[monobagboii]

ACE 👏 PEOPLE 👏 CAN 👏 MAKE 👏 DIRTY 👏 JOKES

Then again, if you’re an aphobe, your mom already made the dirtiest fucking joke of all time, so why should we bother?

[lintufriikki]

soundwave back shots 💙

[manguopudding]

someone give my girlie some glasses 🥺🥺

[majunju]

stelle finally meets her match (in aesthetic taste)