#generally i remember the “it's super popular but i have no clue what it's about” tho so at least there is that | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

wtftarot · 2 years

Text

PAC: Temperance

Where Justice's balance is all logic and laws, Temperance talks about the kind of fluid balance that works better for emotions and spirituality. Temperance talks about seeing things in shades of gray. Temperance is the calm surety of intuition. The balance of nature: mild and gentle but also unflinching and ruthless. Temperance is inner peace and strength. The balance between the material and the spiritual. Where do you need more harmony? Where do you need a more balanced perspective? Maybe you need to ruthlessly make your peace a priority? Let's fuck around and find out.

as always this reading is for entertainment purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice in any capacity. Remember: use common sense and don't be a dumbass.

Pick the Cups, the Irises, or the Sun and Mountains, and head to your reading.

The Cups

Ok, before I even got all the cards pulled I got a vibe that a lot of people who pick this group may be currently in the closet? And I was kinda confused about what that had to do with the reading, but when I finished pulling the cards it all made sense. Sweetheart, you will have a place and time to be free and safe. There is peace in your future. You are not any less valid than someone who's out. I'm getting that some of you may be even be feeling guilty or bad for being lgbtqia? Listen to me, babe: You have nothing to be guilty for. You are good. You are whole. You are strong and badass and so, so, fucking worthy of love. And that goes for all y'all, not just those of y'all struggling with sexual/gender identity (but especially those who are).

The message for all of y'all is about balance in your relationships and prioritizing yourself. Y'all may be giving too much to the people around you and not keeping anything for yourself? Blessings are trying to come your way but every time you receive something good, you immediately give it away. Did y'all know that being generous to a fault is ACTUALLY a problem? Not even in a humble-brag way but in a giving-to-the-point-that-it-hurts-you-financially,-emotionally,-or-physically way. Or in a you're-uncomfortable-with-receiving-things way. Or maybe even a feel-your-worth-is-based-on-how-much-you-give-or-do-for-others way. The blessings are being held back because what's the point if you're going to give them away? They're for you. Not the people around you. Sometimes the point of something IS to make you happy and that's fuckin it. You can have nice things just because you like them. Not only that but you DESERVE nice things. You don't need a reason to be happy. Fighting for your happiness isn't silly or naive. You don't need to justify it or prove you deserve it. More than that: you can make your own happiness a priority in your life. Hard to believe, right? But it's true. It's your life and contrary to popular belief, you are supposed to be the main focus of your life. I mean, it's your life who else should be the focus? The blessings coming your way won't look how you think they will. Or they won't show up the way you think they will. They will come when you stop trying to give them away. When you stop trying to be everything and do everything for everyone else and take care of yourself first. You can't pour from an empty cup, babe. No matter how hard you try. You are super powerful as hell but you keep using that power for everyone else. Then you wonder why you never seem to get anywhere. You got the Death card representing what you don't see. That tells me that you have no fucking clue how much you're life will shift once you start prioritizing yourself. You may not even realize how much energy you've been giving away. Temperance is here, feels like demanding you make choices with your best interest in mind. With your happiness in mind and doing so ruthlessly. Demand rest. Demand joy. Demand your life to be your own.

One other thing, if any of y'all have a shitty ass boss. One who acts like you owe them or acts like they own you? First of all: they're a dick. Second: They don't own you and you don't owe them jack shit. So, they gave you a job, big fucking deal. People are hired all the damn time, they ain't a saint for doing their job. I'm not going to advise you to do anything that could fuck you over but it may be good for you to find ways to regain some control over your working life. Whatever that means for you.

random ass vibes: 88, yellow, origami, paper cranes, wings, birds, blue eyes, Capricorn, frayed blankets, oreos, the wizard of oz,

if you like this reading and would like to support me, you can tip me with the lil tumblr tip thingy

The Irises

Before I pulled any cards I heard 'take off the crown' or 'time to take off the crown'. And looking at your cards, I get it. Y'all have presented the world with this persona to hide who you really are and you're sick of it. It looks exhausting, tbh. It'll be different for all of y'all but it looks like y'all are way softer, gentler than you let on. You put on this mask of apathy and logic but you've got a shit ton of love to give. My chest/ heart space are physically aching with it right now. For some of you, this 'mask' is very cutthroat or ruthless. I think all of y'all feel like this persona is stronger than the 'real' you and you don't want to lose that strength? Being more genuine would mean admitting to the parts of yourself that are vulnerable and I'm hearing squishy? Y'all may have even received praise at one point for how tough and unbothered you seemed. I just heard 'low maintainance'. Lemme just say people being low maintenance is a fucking lie. We all have emotional, physical, and spiritual needs that should be met and when they're not it doesn't build up some sort of tolerance, it creates a deficit. Think about it, you can't build up a tolerance for dehydration, and people who drink enough regularly can go longer without water IF they have to because they're fully hydrated. They may feel the lack of water before someone who's chronically dehydrated but that's just because they're not used to the symptoms. Emotional needs are the same way, even if we refuse to recognize that. Y'all are worried that if you show your softer side, you'll fall off of that 'low maintainance' pedestal that others have put you on. Is that really a bad thing though? If people are only around you because you're not getting your needs met? Because here's the thing: the ONLY thing that will happen is you fall off that pedestal, or you take off that 'unbothered' crown. You are as strong as you think you're pretending to be. Yeah, you maybe secretly crying in the shower but crying is a human expression. No different than laughing when you're happy or yelling when you're pissed, are those expressions weak too? You can be soft and sensitive and care and still kick ass. Yeah, you'll lose the title of unbothered who the fuck cares though? Be bothered about shit. If someone's treating you like shit be fucking bothered, bothered enough to tell them off. You don't deserve that. Do you think people who created awesome changes in our society, did it by being the most 'unbothered'? Hell no! They got good and rightly pissed off and they set out to fix shit. Fuck apathy, sweetheart. Aim for passion. You have such a big heart and you care deeply about the world. Caring is a good thing, but it doesn't help anyone if you don't show it.

There's a second smaller message for some of you who are exploring more spiritual things: This attitude is blocking your intuition and it's through your softer side that your gifts will truly shine.

random ass vibes: turtles, plaid, goats, cowboys, goldfish, iced coffee or tea, grocery shopping after midnight, slurpy

if you like this reading and would like to support me, you can tip me with the lil tumblr tip thingy

The Sun and Mountains

First off, y'all need to give yourselves a pat on the back. I'm seeing that y'all have just finished up or are on the tail end of a really fuckin rough cycle in your life. This cycle was one of self-growth and learning your own depths. (I'm getting that some of you may be in the middle of this cycle and if that's you this is a message of encouragement that you're kickin' ass and it won't be much longer now.) Some of y'all have been unlearning family patterns and trauma. Damn, sweetheart. That's a rough one. I'm getting this really strong defiant vibe from this group. Like I'm hearing 'this ends with me'. This group has looked their shadow or their family's shadow in the eye and not backed down. This is some POWERFUL fucking energy y'all got here. This was mostly internal work for most of you and you've been going through a lot that no one else could see. But sweetheart, I see it, the universe sees it, your guides see it. You need to see it. I think that because you don't have much materially to show for it, you dismiss all the work you've done. but babe. YOU DID THAT. YOU ARE DOING IT. LOOK AT YOU FUCKIN GO! OWN THAT SHIT. This journey has been rough, babe. Let yourself act like it. Take a day and breath. Now that this part is over (or will be over soon) there's some leftover shit you got to let go of from this cycle. The way it's being shown to me is like when you're building something or working on a project and you get it done but now you have to throw away the scraps and shit. It could be some mementos you still have from a shitty time in your life that you need to let go of. Or you may still be doing some of the habits from the last cycle and need to start putting what you learned into action. Maybe you just need to clear the energy from this cycle now that it's over, take a cleansing bath or shower and focus on washing it away, take a dip in a natural body of water, or stand in the rain (my personal favorite). Once you clear the last of this out y'all are going to feel so much lighter and freer. There are definitely some blessings coming your way, it's going to be like a breath of fresh air. Especially if while you were going through this cycle, things were very stagnate or you felt stuck. Things are going to be moving again, it may even take you by surprise. I am seeing a sort of heads-up for some of y'all if this was family shit you were working through, there may be some people who are jealous of the blessings you're getting. They may even try to guilt you for it? Like, make you feel bad for having good things happen? I'm getting that for a few of you someone will try and get you to give your blessings to them. Or talk down about the good things that are happening for you. Only a lil sorry, but this energy is kinda shitty, honestly. It's like when things start going your way they can't stand it and try to pull you down and I don't like that. Be careful who you talk to about your blessings. Don't worry though, this ain't nothing like that cycle you just went through. You got this, easy.

random ass vibes: The Hobbit, LOTR, 44, Here comes the sun, maps, crooked teeth, scuba diving, black cats, a metallic smell??,

if you like this reading and would like to support me, you can tip me with the lil tumblr tip thingy

#tarot reading #tarot #divination #tarot community #tarot cards #pick a card #pick a pile #pac reading #tarot readings #pick a card reading #pick a picture

114 notes · View notes

thesoundofmadness · 9 months

Text

rc9gn au band hcs for @asterous09 sorry this took so long lol time is very cruel mistress

pre-band backstory

Randy and Howard meet Lavander in 9th grade during the whole 'kick out of the band' thing, but they don't actually become friends till college

Randy has been mind wiped and has no clue about the ninja. He knows he went to high school, and during it alot of 'something' happened, but he can't place it no matter how hard he tries. Doctors claim it's some sort of dissociative amnesia. They speculate that whatever this 'something' is, Randy couldn't handle it so he locked away whatever memory he has of it. Randy feels like that's not it, but he doesn't know what else it could be.

Howard remembers tho. He hates it a lot. They drift apart.

Despite what happened before, Lavander is still very serious about music. It's his dream to become a rockstar, so he studies everything about music. From playing instruments to production to distribution, everything. It helps a lot that his parents just so happen to be already involved in the scene, and super fucking rich.

They don't go to the same college. Randy meets Lavander one night when Randy randomly goes to a concert at a local bar. Lavander recognizes him and talks to him afterwards.

Randy still feels bad about 9th grade (even if he can't remember exactly what it was he feels so bad about), but luckily Lavander has mostly moved on and has no hard feelings about it.

They talk and start becoming friends.

Lavander ends up leaving his band. They have a huge dispute because, despite having all the instruments and skills needed, they don't have a lead singer. No record label is going to pick them up without a singer. It leads to the bassist telling Lavander he doesn't have the talent for it, and Lavander leaves.

While hanging out, Lavander vents to Randy about it. He says maybe he should just quit. Randy tells him something the nomicon once told him about being yourself, and says something like 'Who cares if they think you don't have the talent? If you want to do it, do it. At the end of it, you gotta do what makes you happy. Though... maybe I'm not the one to be telling you that...'

Lavander then suggests maybe they should pair up. 'You still know how to play the piano and keyboard, right? If you get some singing lessons....'

I like to think that Randy and Rachel also become friends bc they wind up working at the same movie theater. Rachel is also going into music, and wants to be an idol/popstar. After giving it A LOT of thought, Randy ends up asking her for singing lessons.

This whole time, Howard is off doing his own thing. Probably studying business or cooking. He won't talk to Randy at all. Won't answer texts, won't return his calls, just avoids him in general. He hates every second of it.

I kinda think maybe Heidi, Bucky and Lavander, Rachel kinda.... force Randy and Howard to make up. They see the toll it's taking on each of them, as much as they deny it. I mean, they've been glued to the hip since they were infants. Heidi decides 'okay i'm tired of you being depressed, go make friends with him again'. Nearly drags him to the game-hole herself

Somehow, it works. Randy and Howard make up, and they decide to band up with Lavander.

actual band stuff

slowly they become the most popular band in Norrisvile somehow.

Randy is main vocals/keyboard, Lavander plays the guitar and bass, and Howard does drums. They don't have a permanent bassist for their live shows, but thanks to Lavanders connections, finding one isn't hard.

Lavander takes care of everything musically. Song writing, composing, producing, taking care of their instruments, keeping them on track during practice, everything. He takes it extremely seriously and won't let them slack for even a second.

Howard is their manager for the most part. He maintains the fiances and gets them gigs.

Randy manages everything regarding the public. He's the main face of the band. He maintains their social media, and is the perfect MC for their performances. He used to have a ton of stage fright (mostly because of his ninja trauma) but gets over it quickly.

Randy kinda puts on a 'confident dumbass' persona in public. He's very charismatic, very funny, open and honest, even if he's kinda stupid sometimes. Exact opposite how he is in real life. Irl he's very reclusive, and anxious. He tries his hardest to be relaxed and chill, but that's difficult around strangers.

He HATES it whenever someone recognizes him out of the blue. Being the ninja, he had to keep his identity a secret to keep himself safe. Whenever a random fan recognizes him when he doesn't expect it, it triggers his paranoia and it takes him EVERYTHING not to hit them and run. He always wears a disguise whenever running errands.

Randy's usually the one who comes up with ideas for their shows and music videos. He knows quite a bit about directing and cameras. He can be a little demanding on set, always trying to get the absolute best shot, but treats everyone with respect.

Howard loves it tho. 100% always willing to give a random person an autograph when he's just getting snacks at the store. He's also more than a little demanding backstage, but Randy usually puts him in his place.

Lavander doesn't mind it either, but usually dresses up with Randy to help him feel better. He's very camera shy though. He doesn't mind letting Randy and Howard take care of interviews and such.

They're friends with Rhymes and his group. They have a few songs together.

They also have a few songs with Rachel. She's norrisviles biggest popstar (basically their equivlent to taylor swift). It's known that her and Randy have been friends for a long time. It's probably speculated they're dating.

Randy and Rachel don't mind it much. It keeps people from finding out about their actual relationships (Randy's with Theresa, Rachel has her own relationship).

I like to imagine the bros live together to save money. they got a weird gay thing going on.

Lavander and Howard probably drink alot. Randy not so much

I just know they probably have a ton of fangirls and simps. there's probably fandom wars on who's the best.

There's also a small bit of speculation that Randy is the ninja. I mean, he has a weird fascination with swords and martial arts, tends to wear black/red a lot, grew up in norrisvile, absolutely hates robots... Luckily the ninja has shown up a few times at their performances, immediately debunking the whole thing. Randy refuses to comment on it.

Lavander's old band is very popular too, and they have a weird rivalry going on on stage. It's fake of course, irl they get along well and there's no hard feelings, but Randy suggested they play up on the 'ex-band' thing for no reason and people absolutely ate it up.

Randy and Howard steams lets play sometimes. Lavander sometimes joins in too.

resentments hcs:

Their longest and most popular album is titled 'RESENTMENTS' and is about Randy and Howard's ninja trauma. It's double the length of a normal album, half of it is in japanese, (randy speaks it), and no one can figure out what the hell any of it means. Randy's said before it's meant to be a message to 'someone', (the nomicon), and that alot of it doesn't make sense to anyone besides him and Howard. not even Lavander knows what the hell is going on in it, and he produced it.

I have a bunch of ideas for what songs are on it, but one of them is called 'graduation'. It's about 10-12 minutes long. It's supposed to be Randy talking directly to the nomicon, telling it everything he meant to say before he mind wiped.

Another one is called 'Demons eye', and it's like, maybe 5-7 minutes long. It's about Howard recounting what it was like to be possessed by the tengu.

Not sure about the title, but another one was written by Lavander. Lavander doesn't know anything about the ninja, but he's seen the massive toll it's taken on Randy and Howard. He wants them to talk to him about it, so the song is just him telling them 'I'm here for you'.

One of them is called 'Secret Garden' and it's a love song about Theresa. It's one of their singles that released before the album, and Theresa absolutely adores it.

One of the first songs on the album is called 'Hornet's Nest' and it's a disstrack against McFist. McFist tried to sue them over it. The artwork for the song in the video is inspired by one of McFist's old advertisements. Tried to say it was defamation, but everything in the song is publicly available information you can find with the right google search. Then he tried to sue them for copyright for the artwork, but the judge ruled the artwork is transformative enough to not count. Which then led to an investigation of McFist's entire company, causing them to find out about his ninja destruction attempts. They got a fuckton of money out of it, and Randy absolutely LOVES to tell the story of it. (Ya know 'rat' by penelope scott? that's basically this one)

Another song is called 'Heroic Death' and is about leaving a legacy and like, if randy died as the ninja no one would really know. All of the album is emotional, but this one might be the most heavy hitter next to graduation. It's a sin in the fandom not to like this one.

i have thought too much about this

#the docs #rc9gn au #rc9gn

15 notes · View notes

itsjustjelly · 2 years

Text

As a fan of many many d&d campaigns in my life, I've been super ecstatic that Vox Machina has gotten an animated show (and as of now, I know there are plans for a Mighty Nein show as well). Honestly watching these characters come to life through animation and the player's incredible voice acting has been awesome.

However JRWI (especially Riptide) has a special place in my heart as my #1 all time favorite d&d podcast, and though I doubt it will ever happen unless they somehow get way more popular, I've been thinking about scenes from Ripride that I think, personaly, would be insane to see animated as well. So I made a list:

(Spoilers for the campaign up until 92)

Gillion's entire "My last sin is that I hate you" speech to the elders.

Both of the Chip vs Gillion duels

Moment in episode 47 where they finally figured out a pirate crew name

"What do you really want Jay? Just say it so I can fight for it"

Just all of episode 53 in general

"I just wanted to find the way home"

Scanlan's song in season 2 of the Vox Machina show was so good, seeing Hole in Your Heart animated I think would also be pretty cool

The Kiss™️ (you know what I'm talking about)

Any of Chip's nightmares

Or, also Gillion's Nightmare in 92

The Improv show in 73. That shit was wild, I have no clue how that would even remotely translate to animation but I'd love to see someone try

Jay carving in "Millennium Chipper" back onto the side of the ship after Chip tried to sand it out, only because I would cry

Gillions "rebirth" in 82

Jay going through The Block in a clown costume

There's probably other moments I missed, but that's all I remembered on the spot.

#jrwi riptide #jrwi #jrwi spoilers #jrwi chip #jrwi jay #jrwi gillion #vox machina

24 notes · View notes

more-than-a-princess · 11 months

Note

🌟💔🎲

Questions for the Mun - Accepting!

🌟 - Who was your very first rp muse?

Hermione Granger from Harry Potter, in what feels like a million years ago. My first OCs + Relena Peacecraft from Gundam Wing soon followed.

💔 - What’s something you dislike about your muse?

I think this question has two answers, really: what do I dislike about the muse based on what's given/shown in canon, and what do I dislike about the muse due to the fandom.

For the canon, there are times where I just hate seeing Sonia being taken advantage of/teased/etc. because she's sheltered and just doesn't know better, but she also doesn't effectively stand up for herself a lot either. Maybe it's some of the tropes DR puts her in, but I'd love to be a bit more snarky to characters who are being rude, as opposed to issuing commands that never really stick.

Additionally, and these aren't really Sonia's fault but how she's written: why give her military knowledge and prowess and not let her USE IT? Yes, having all weapons and methods of transport disabled in the Neo World Program simulation makes sense, but at the end of DR3 where she just...encourages Kazuichi instead of picking up a gun or driving a tank? For as ridiculous as DR can be at times, surely they could fit some sort of military vehicle onto that ship that she could commandeer. Super lame.

And don't get me started on her free time events. I love some of what the free time events reveal, but the whole bit of "Hajime looks like this hero of legend and I'll just happily co-rule and give him power equal to mine in Novoselic!" thing is just not okay to me. I don't like it. Therefore, my Sonia is the monarch and any partner she takes is her consort, end of story.

For the popular fandom opinions, I abhor the take of "Sonia is useless/her talent is useless and sucks, Sonia should have died to give Kazuichi character development/Hiyoko could have lived, Sonia is boring" arguments. And of course the Get rid of Sonia so we can have Kazuichi/Gundham" take. I had this issue in the Gundam Wing fandom long ago with people hating Relena because she got in the way of Heero/Duo.

Y'all, these are bad takes. Don't do it. There is nothing wrong with being a kind, generous, friendly, compassionate female character.

🎲 - Do you have a favorite board game?

When I was younger, it was definitely Clue and Trivial Pursuit! To the point that I gave Sonia Cluedo as a favorite childhood game growing up: I think she'd enjoy it.

As an adult, I still love trivia, but I also enjoy Betrayal at House on the Hill and Cards Against Humanity. The horror, of recalling facts at the drop of a hat, a haunted house, and seeing just how much of a terrible/sarcastic person you can be.

Does anyone else remember online Cards Against Humanity but you're playing IC as your muse(s)? That should make a comeback.

#more-than-a-princess answered #more-than-a-princess musings #riftdancer #(Questions for the mun meme)#(Thank you for the asks!)#(I'm sorry for unfollowing you at some point too: probably during one of my interest checks and you were on hiatus)#(That's why I just followed you back: I'd still love to interact!)

4 notes · View notes

90363462 · 2 years

Text

Taylor Swift Has Spent 16 Years Subtly Telling Us Super Intimate Details About Other Celebrities In Her Music. Here’s Everything That We’ve Learned So Far.

We all know the songs about Kimye and Jake Gyllenhaal, but piecing together details from Taylor’s entire body of work actually gives us a much deeper insight into the world of celebrity and popular culture.

Stephanie SoteriouPosted 8 hours ago

Over the last 16 years, she’s faced fierce scrutiny for taking her life experiences and turning them into Grammy Award–winning songs, namely because many involve her love interests. But, contrary to popular belief, Taylor doesn’t just sing about her ex- and current lovers — she actually memorializes her entire life through music.

This includes her childhood memories, high school friendships, and family values — as well as the platonic feuds and fallouts that she has endured along the way.

But by writing about her real life, which just so happens to involve a plethora of famous faces, Taylor’s entire body of work serves as a treasure trove of insight into the world of celebrity and popular culture.

While it is easy for the casual listener to hear “Style,” “All Too Well,” and “Look What You Made Me Do” and come to some generic conclusions about Harry Styles, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Kimye, what many don’t realize is that multiple songs, when pieced together, actually form a much deeper story.

So in honor of the release of Taylor’s 10th studio album, Midnights, I have taken it upon myself to tell that story.

But, before we get into it, I can’t disclaim enough that lyrical interpretation is subjective and that Taylor very rarely reveals who her songs are about. She does, however, actively encourage fans to connect clues and Easter eggs about the subjects of her songs. This article is the result of thorough research, fan theories, and widespread conclusions, but nothing is 100% confirmed.

So, let’s delve into everything that Taylor Swift’s music has secretly taught us about other celebrities.

Taylor’s first high-profile relationship was with Joe Jonas in 2008. They were 18 when they started dating in July, but it famously ended with a 25-second phone call in October.

According to Taylor’s songs “Mr. Perfectly Fine” and “Forever & Always,” Joe told her he’d been waiting for her all of his life, vowed to never leave, and even dropped the L-word.

In “Last Kiss,” Taylor recalls falling for Joe because of his confidence, charm, and respect for her parents, which is referenced by the way that he shook her dad’s hand upon their first meeting.

Taylor called Joe “the life of the party” and credited him for pulling her out of her shell by encouraging her to dance with him. Taylor flew out to Texas to watch the Jonas Brothers in concert on July 9, and this date is also name-checked in the song. But things went downhill quickly when Joe began to ghost her.

The singer ultimately found herself staring at her phone as she waited for his call, but that’s probably something she regrets because when he finally did make contact he brutally dumped her.

Speaking on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2008, Taylor said of their failed relationship: “When I find that person that is right for me, he’ll be wonderful. And when I look at that person, I’m not even gonna be able to remember the boy who broke up with me over the phone in 25 seconds when I was 18.”

The worst part for Taylor was the “casually cruel” way Joe had acted as though he hadn’t done anything wrong after dumping her, and she accused him of issuing an “insincere apology” just so that he could look like the good guy.

And while Joe appeared to be “perfectly fine” after their split, Taylor struggled immensely and would wear his clothes around the house because she was so devastated.

But Taylor and Joe eventually managed to salvage a friendship and are now on good terms. In fact, in her 2020 song “Invisible String” Taylor recalls sending a gift to Joe and his now-wife Sophie Turner when their first daughter was born.

While Joe didn’t turn out to be the love of Taylor’s life, the pain that he caused her actually led to an eerie premonition in her 2010 song “Last Kiss,” where she sings: “Your name forever the name on my lips.”

As fate would have it, she wasn’t wrong, and she has been seriously loved up with another Joe — Joe Alwyn — since 2016. But we’ll get to that later.

After splitting from Joe, Taylor entered one of the most formative years of her life.

It was, after all, September 2009 when Kanye West stormed the VMAs stage as she attempted to accept her Best Female Video award, snatched the mic from her hand, and said Beyoncé should have won instead.

In her 2010 song “Back To December,” Taylor revealed that she had burst into tears backstage after the incident and was comforted by her then-boyfriend, Taylor Lautner, who had presented her with the award alongside Shakira.

In the track, which appeared on her album Speak Now, Taylor shares intimate details about how he supported her through the ordeal, recounting: “How you held me in your arms that September night / The first time you ever saw me cry.”

The two Taylors had only just met on the set of Valentine’s Day that summer, but a reference to her realizing the strength of her feelings “in the fall” suggests that the VMAs incident was the catalyst for them falling in love.

Unfortunately, they split in December, and Taylor had massive remorse over failing to realize how special the actor was until it was too late. In fact, in a rare feat for the exes referenced in Taylor’s music, Lautner comes away without a single bad word said about him.

As for Kanye, Taylor was initially willing to forgive him for the VMAs incident and approached the situation from a level of understanding. In her 2010 song “Innocent,” Taylor tries to speak to the rapper’s inner child and accepts that life can be tough, even at 32 — Kanye’s age at the time of the ceremony.

But this was far from the end of Taylor and Kanye’s run-ins, and she’d later hugely regret the forgiveness and grace she showed him here.

Almost immediately after breaking up with Lautner in December 2009, Taylor ignored the warnings from the people around her and started dating John Mayer.

John is 13 years older than Taylor, who was just 19 at the time, which is probably why her mom thought that she was “losing her mind” when she struck up a relationship with him.

Others told Taylor to “run as fast as you can” away from the singer, but she didn’t understand their problematic relationship dynamic until after the fact, and reflected on this in her 2010 song “Dear John.”

With hindsight, Taylor believes that John took advantage of her and treated her in a way that she was too young to understand. She found herself walking on eggshells, afraid of upsetting him because his moods were unpredictable. He would regularly flip between being warm and loving and cold and distant.

Taylor went so far as to accuse John of having a “sick need to give love then take it away,” and ultimately regretted their entire relationship, which ended in February 2010.

Four months after their split, Taylor had an awkward encounter with John when they were seated near each other at the CMT Music Awards, which inspired her song “The Story Of Us.”

She told USA Today: “‘The Story of Us’ is about running into someone I had been in a relationship with at an awards show, and we were seated a few seats away from each other. I just wanted to say to him, ‘Is this killing you? Because it’s killing me.’ But I didn’t. Because I couldn’t. Because we both had these silent shields up. I went home and I sat there at the kitchen table and I said to my mom, ‘I felt like I was standing alone in a crowded room.’”

And despite the age gap presenting a problem in her relationship with John, Taylor went on to date another older man at the end of 2010.

Jake Gyllenhaal has arguably faced the most scrutiny of any subject of Taylor’s work, with the backlash intensifying last year following the release of “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version)” and its accompanying short film.

Taylor was 20 and Jake was 29 when they began their on-again, off-again relationship, which has been referenced in several songs — including “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.”

The song describes Jake constantly “picking fights” as well as being obsessed with how he's perceived by others. And this preoccupation with appearing cool and trendy led to him regularly putting Taylor down, diminishing her interests, laughing at her aspirations, and rolling his eyes at her jokes.

Discussing the ex who inspired “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” Taylor told USA Today: “He made me feel like I wasn’t as good or as relevant as these hipster bands he listened to. So I made a song that I knew would absolutely drive him crazy.”

In “I Bet You Think About Me,” Taylor also exposes Jake’s fear of aging and no longer being “hip” before admitting that she was unable to fit in with his circle of friends. This also appeared in the All Too Well short film, where the woman protagonist tries and ultimately fails to fit in with her partner’s friends at a dinner party.

In the song, Taylor says that Jake’s “Brooklyn broke [her] skin and bone,” suggesting that trying to keep up with his coolness ultimately wore her down.

The pressure of the relationship was so intense that Taylor ended up breaking down in tears in the bathroom of a showbiz party in 2010, with it being widely assumed she was consoled by Anne Hathaway.

In “All Too Well,” Taylor refers to the woman who comforted her as “some actress,” but the timeline appears to perfectly coincide with Anne’s recollection of meeting Taylor.

The actor, who has worked with Jake in the past, said of Taylor in a 2015 interview: “She just seems to be following her heart. I met her — I hope it’s OK to say this — when she and Jake were together. She was 20 at the time, and we hung out one night. I was like, ‘You are a magnificent creature.’”

In addition to Jake’s obsession with seeming trendy, he was also insecure about his height while dating Taylor. The actor is 5'11", and Taylor is 5'10", and in her song “Begin Again” she references the fact that he didn’t like her wearing high heels.

Taylor described Jake’s family life in her songs, too, recalling his mom embarrassing him by showing her old photos and telling childhood stories about him on the T-ball team.

Earlier this year, Taylor also seemingly confirmed a long-standing theory that Jake was the first person she had sex with — and the moment happened at his sister Maggie Gyllenhaal's house.

In the opening verse of “All Too Well,” Taylor sings: “I left my scarf there at your sister’s house / And you’ve still got it in your drawer even now.” She later revisits the theme with the line: “But you keep my old scarf / From that very first week / Because it reminds you of innocence / And smells like me / You can’t get rid of it.”

Many believed that the scarf was actually a metaphor for her virginity, and in September, Taylor became visibly flustered when she was asked about its meaning at the Toronto International Film Festival. She confirmed that it was indeed a metaphor, and then awkwardly added: “Um…And I think when I say it’s a metaphor, I’m just going to stop…and I’m going to say thanks for the incredible question to whoever asked it, you’ve really taken us for a ride with that one, thank you.”

Jake also spent time with Taylor’s family and managed to win over her dad by telling “self-effacing jokes” over coffee. But Mr. Swift ultimately turned on Jake when he stood Taylor up on her 21st birthday, almost two months into their relationship.

This milestone event is the stuff of legend within the Taylor fandom, with the All Too Well short film reflecting Taylor being dramatically let down by Jake’s no-show at the party while surrounded by her innermost circle.

In 2014, a source told RadarOnline: “The day before — all was set — he was coming, no issues. But the day of, she doesn’t hear from him at all. No texts, no calls. Taylor thought maybe he was planning some sort of surprise. Nope. He didn’t show up and she locked herself in the bathroom and cried the entire night.”

And this is all but confirmed in Taylor’s 2012 song “The Moment I Knew,” in which she recalls being glammed up in her party dress as friends asked her about Jake before becoming bitterly disappointed and heartbroken at the realization he wasn’t going to show.

Ultimately, Jake broke up with Taylor because of their age gap, even telling her the relationship may have worked if they'd been closer in age. However, he ended up regretting the decision, repeatedly calling and begging for another chance.

In fact, Jake didn’t tell Taylor that he loved her until three months after they had broken up, and in “I Bet You Think About Me,” Taylor appears to find great joy in the fact that Jake realized that she is “harder to forget” than she “was to leave.”

Despite that small slither of solace, Taylor also admitted she battled with wanting to take Jake back while being unable to forgive or forget the pain he’d caused on her 21st birthday. To protect herself from reopening old wounds, Taylor ignored Jake’s texts and phone calls but expressed concern in “I Almost Do” that he would think she hated him or had moved on.

But it’s not all bad — Jake ruining Taylor’s 21st birthday inspired her to make a really big deal out of her 22nd, which is reflected in her song “22.”

The upbeat pop song follows “All Too Well” on the Red tracklist, and for years, fans had been confused by the emotional whiplash of that sequence. But when last year’s extended version of “All Too Well” provided additional details about Taylor’s 21st, her desire to reclaim her birthday via “22” immediately after the heartbreak anthem suddenly made perfect sense.

After Jake, Taylor went on to date Harry Styles from late 2012 to early 2013. They were widely reported to have had a brief fling in the spring of 2012, which came crashing down after Harry kissed somebody else in New Zealand. But they reconciled later that year.

In her 2014 song “How You Get The Girl,” Taylor admits to secretly hoping that Harry would show up at her door and apologize for the way that he had behaved while begging for another chance.

And it appears she got her wish, with Taylor revealing he did reach out again in the song “Style.” In the same track, she admits to being reluctant to give Harry a second chance because of his reputation, but she ends up being sucked back in by his charm.

(As a sidenote, Taylor previously acknowledged how obvious the subject of “Style” is thanks to its title, telling Rolling Stone: “We should have just called it ‘I’m Not Even Sorry.’”)

Harry and Taylor’s fame made their relationship difficult from the offset. In “I Know Places,” Taylor recalls “vultures circling,” with people desperate to get a piece of them.

In fact, Taylor became so exhausted by the constant attention that “Out Of The Woods” recounts a moment where she tried to end their relationship, believing she was “setting” Harry “free,” only for him to convince her to stay.

And in perhaps the finest example of the intel we get from Taylor’s music, the same song reveals that she and Harry were in a snowmobile accident together that, somehow, never got out to the press.

Fans were confused when Harry was pictured with a bandage over his chin in December 2012 following his and Taylor’s trip to a ski resort, but further details didn’t come to light until Taylor revealed them herself on 1989.

It turns out that the accident happened after Harry “hit the brakes too soon,” resulting in a hospital dash where they both cried as he got stitches.

Taylor later revealed that there were around four other people at the hospital who all promised not to tell anybody about what had happened, and — surprisingly — they were true to their word.

She also said she included the anecdote in the song to remind the press and public that they aren’t privy to everything she does. “People think they know the whole narrative of my life,” she shared. “I think maybe that line is there to remind people that there are really big things they don’t know about.”

Harry and Taylor broke up shortly after the snowmobile incident, but him later buying a house a couple of blocks away made her reflect on what could have been if he’d been able to commit.

It was around this time that Taylor’s feud with Katy Perry exploded. This was referenced in “Bad Blood,” where Taylor describes how their “mad love” for one another completely shattered.

While the pair were publicly friendly from 2009, attending birthday parties and joining each other onstage, 2013 saw them clashing over some backing dancers, and chaos ensued.

The story goes that three of the dancers on Taylor’s Red tour left before it ended so that they could join Katy on her Prismatic tour instead. Taylor told Rolling Stone that she felt like Katy had “tried to sabotage” her.

And this was reiterated in “Bad Blood,” where Taylor says that Katy purposefully “hit” her where she was “weak” and claims that she’d never recover from the long-lasting wound of the betrayal. Taylor also references her upset over this betrayal coming from someone she’d shared such good memories with.

While Taylor appeared to insist that she and Katy would never be able to resolve their issue, time proved to be a healer, and Katy had a cameo in Taylor’s 2019 music video for “You Need To Calm Down,” which the two women hoped would be “a symbol of redemption and forgiveness.”

But the same truce has not yet been called between Taylor and her former best friend Karlie Kloss, who Taylor seemingly confirmed that she’d fallen out with in a 2016 essay for Elle.

While the exact details of the fallout are unclear, it appears that Taylor caught Karlie speaking negatively behind her back.

In her 2020 song “It’s Time To Go,” Taylor sings: “When the words of a sister come back in whispers / That prove she was not in fact what she seemed / Not a twin from your dreams / She’s a crook who was caught.”

After their fallout, Karlie would subtly align herself with Taylor’s enemies — including Kanye, Kim, and Katy — through pointed Instagram captions and comments in interviews. Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton later claimed that Karlie had leaked personal information about Taylor to Scooter Braun, whom Taylor has since branded her “nemesis.”

Many Swifties are also convinced that the 2020 song “Closure” is about Karlie. If this is the case, then it appears that Karlie wrote Taylor a letter to apologize while the singer was spending time in London with boyfriend Joe Alwyn.

Karlie seemingly acknowledged that she was in the wrong and expressed guilt over how she’d treated Taylor. However, Taylor has no interest in forgiveness and said that even seeing the model's name on the correspondence caused her pain.

Taylor accused Karlie of issuing a “fake” apology in order to absolve herself of the guilt from the past so that she can move on.

Meanwhile, Taylor and Karlie’s fallout appeared to coincide with Taylor’s breakup with DJ Calvin Harris, whom she dated for 15 months between 2015 and 2016. But despite the pretty lengthy romance, there’s very few songs about Calvin in Taylor’s discography apart from the aptly named “I Forgot That You Existed,” which appears to reference their split.

The breakup came shortly before the climax of Taylor’s infamous feud with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West over the rapper’s song “Famous,” which includes the controversial lyric, “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / Why? I made that bitch famous.”

At the time, Kanye insisted that Taylor had approved the line, but her publicist maintained that she’d not been made aware that he’d refer to her as “that bitch.”

In July 2016, Kim uploaded a Snapchat video documenting a phone call between Kanye and Taylor, in which they discussed the song and she appeared to give her approval — however, it didn’t show Kanye consulting Taylor on the use of the word “bitch.”

As a direct result of the leak, Taylor took an extended break from the public eye after her social media pages were flooded with snake emojis while the hashtag #TaylorSwiftIsOverParty began trending worldwide. She did not return to the limelight until the release of her 2017 album Reputation.

Here, Taylor reflected on what had happened between her and Kimye, and even admitted that until that point she’d been on friendly terms with the rapper since the 2009 VMAs incident.

Taylor believed that she was giving him a second chance and was left hurt when he stabbed her in the back. She was also convinced that Kanye deliberately recorded their conversation intending to set her up — something she referenced in the album's title track, “Look What You Made Me Do.”

In “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things,” Taylor points out that “friends don’t try to trick you” and accuses Kanye of getting her on the phone to “mind-twist” her. Later in the song, she reveals that one of the only people she could confide in at that time was her mom, who “had to listen” to all the “drama.”

She also believes that Kimye purposefully manipulated information to their benefit to bring her down while she was at her peak. In “Call It What You Want,” Taylor brands them “liars” and says she was completely caught off guard by the “overnight” demise of her reputation.

Taylor continued to call out Kimye in her subsequent albums, and in “Mad Woman,” she appears to suggest that the former couple’s mutual vendetta against her is what kept them together for so long.

In the song, she also suggests that Kim did Kanye’s “dirtiest work” by leaking the audio, before pointedly adding: “It’s obvious that wanting me dead has really brought you two together.”

But while Reputation highlighted her anger and desire for revenge on Kimye, Taylor later realized the pair would ruin themselves without her input.

Since #Snakegate, Kim has filed for divorce from Kanye, and his reputation has plummeted. In 2020’s “Long Story Short,” Taylor reflects on this and wishes she could tell her past self not to waste so much time on “petty” feuds, singing: “Your nemeses will defeat themselves before you get the chance to swing.”

Despite this, Kim and Kanye did drastically change the course of Taylor’s history and triggered some other important events that arguably led her directly to the happy and peaceful life she so values now.

As mentioned, Taylor broke up with Calvin shortly before the Kimye drama. And, as it all unfolded, Calvin made a series of shady comments about her, including the snipe that he is glad to be “free” from her, and wore sneakers designed by Kanye.

Taylor says she felt she was living “in the shade” Calvin was “throwing” at her lowest point and accused him of getting the “popcorn” the minute her reputation “crumbled.”

She added that she’d have behaved differently in Calvin’s shoes, remaining his biggest cheerleader even if he failed to sell any tickets to his concerts.

And this is particularly interesting because she later admitted to rarely spending time with Calvin and having little to no interest in his work.

In “Gorgeous,” Taylor says that Calvin is “in the club doing I don’t know what.” And the original lyric was just as telling: “I haven’t seen him in a couple of months.”

Taylor’s music also reveals that she actually wanted to split from Calvin long before pulling the plug but felt she “needed a reason” to leave him. So, she sought the “nearest lips” possible. Enter Tom Hiddleston.

The timeline of Taylor’s relationships with Calvin, Tom, and her current boyfriend Joe is confusing to even the most dedicated of Swifties, but her music does offer some insight into what went down.

Taylor met both Tom and Joe at the Met Gala in May 2016. At the time, she was still dating Calvin, and it was two months before Kim would leak that damning Snapchat video.

In short, Taylor purposefully tried to seduce Tom because she was looking for an excuse to end things with Calvin. As a result, she literally views the British actor as a “getaway car,” and in her 2017 song of the same name, she mirrors Calvin’s post-split remark about being free with a line describing feeling “the light of freedom” on her “face” once with Tom.

Interestingly, Tom is nine years older than Taylor, and in “Don’t Blame Me,” she admits to experimenting with older men and treating them as “playthings” for her “to use” at this point in her life.

This is a stark parallel to the way that she believes older men — such as John and Jake — treated her when she was much younger, suggesting that her past experiences had hardened her approach to dating.

Tom and Taylor spent most of their incredibly public but short-lived romance jetting around the world. In “I Did Something Bad,” Taylor suggests that Tom thought that he was doing her a favor by being in the relationship and viewed himself as her savior.

However, Tom’s desire for publicity led to Taylor questioning his intentions. According to reports at the time, Tom had asked Taylor to be his date for the Emmys, and when she expressed her concern about the backlash that came with their repeated PDAs, he didn’t back down.

Taylor ended up splitting with Tom over concerns he was using her status for his own benefit. But this also alleviated any guilt she may have felt about publicly calling him out in her songs, pointedly saying “if he drops my name then I owe him nothing.”

Despite the bravado, Taylor does appear to show some remorse in “Getaway Car,” where she repeatedly says “sorry” to Tom for how things panned out.

At the same time, though, she tells Tom that he should’ve recognized the relationship was a very obvious rebound from Calvin. In a clever reference to their first encounter at the Met Gala, Taylor says: “Should’ve known I’d be the first to leave / Think about the place where you first met me.”

And while she initially chose to date Tom after meeting him and Joe at the same time, she remained in touch with the latter over the summer and they began dating in October 2016.

Interestingly, Joe and Taylor seemed almost destined for each other, as “Bad Blood” was the first song he heard after landing in LA for the first time on a trip where he also happened to dine at her favorite restaurant.

When they finally did meet, it was the sound of his laughter followed by an English accent that caught Taylor’s attention. And while she played it cool at the time, she actually went home and googled his name.

She has also admitted to drunkenly poking fun at Joe’s accent as well as purposefully avoiding him because she was so overwhelmed by attraction. In fact, the attraction was so intense that she even had mixed feelings about him being available. On the one hand, she’d be jealous of a potential girlfriend, but, on the other, at least then she wouldn't have to decide whether to act on her feelings.

It isn’t clear whether Taylor and Joe overlapped with Tom in any way, but she has revealed that the pair played “cat and mouse” for a few months while they sussed one another out.

Despite Taylor clearly being secretly obsessed with Joe from day one, her 2019 song “Cruel Summer” suggests they had a more casual arrangement at the start of their relationship, with Joe being pretty blasé about the whole thing and both of them “playing games.”

In fact, Taylor became so concerned that Joe was leading her on that she almost ended things. But when he called her up and laid all his cards on the table, she took the plunge and jumped into the relationship.

In a bid to escape the publicity that her love life normally attracts, Taylor went to extreme lengths to keep their dates private and would take back entrances into dive bars to avoid being spotted.

Keep in mind, this was all going on when Taylor’s reputation was at its lowest. She had completely retreated from the spotlight after the Kimye feud, and one of the reasons that she trusted Joe is because he didn’t care that her public image had fallen apart.

And Joe ended up being the silver lining to this dark period in Taylor’s life. Despite experiencing the “worst times” of her professional career, she admits in “Call It What You Want:” “I’m doing better than I ever was.”

According to her songs, about one month after Taylor and Joe officially started dating, they escaped to a cabin together so she could process the Kimye drama. In a poignant callback to her time with Tom, Taylor invited Joe to join her with the caveat that he must understand that he doesn’t “need to save” her.

It was during this getaway that Taylor managed to find a way through the emotional turmoil of the summer and realize that she would eventually overcome it. And it seems that Joe was the wake-up call she needed to see that there’s more to life than fame and professional success.

In contrast to the glitz and glamor of showbiz, Taylor’s relationship with Joe is built on normalcy and embracing the little things of the everyday, right down to the mundane intimacy of cleaning up after a party with somebody who you love.

In fact, much of their time together is spent privately with their inner circles. In “Paper Rings,” Taylor reveals that she’d taken part in Joe’s long-standing family tradition of jumping into a freezing cold lake on Christmas Day after he encouraged her by taking the plunge first. In the same song, she reflects on how they’d painted a wall for Joe’s younger brother together.

“Lover” also highlights domesticity as a key component of their relationship, with tenderness and affection expressed in seemingly inconsequential situations like having friends stay over and making new traditions in their shared home.

And their normalcy is most exposed in “London Boy,” where Taylor details bonding with Joe’s close friends in London pubs over rugby and “stories from uni.” Through Joe, Taylor has also realized that she doesn’t care about expensive things and would rather just enjoy quality time together.

In “Invisible String,” Taylor reveals that she and Joe blend into the everyday so well that when they marked their third anniversary with a special lunch, the server didn’t realize who she was and instead thought that she was a regular woman who bore a striking resemblance to a pop star.

But just because Taylor can sometimes pass for a civilian, it doesn’t mean that she is. In fact, she’s often concerned that her relationship will collapse under the pressures of fame.

At the beginning of her relationship with Joe, Taylor questioned whether they were “stupid” to think that it could work out. In “The Archer,” she expresses her fear of deliberately sabotaging the relationship. In “Peace,” she’s scared that the drama surrounding her will eventually push Joe to leave.

“Would it be enough if I could never give you peace?" Taylor repeatedly asks him.

This fear is reiterated in the 2017 song “Dancing With Our Hands Tied,” where Taylor reveals that she had “a bad feeling” about the “world” tearing them apart when she was ambushed by paparazzi after months of hiding out with Joe. However, she carried on with the relationship regardless.

Ultimately, being with Joe has encouraged Taylor to take a step back from the limelight and enjoy a more low-key life. But it’s arguable that, were she not knocked from her pedestal by Kimye, she likely wouldn’t have been able to give the relationship the privacy it needed in order to survive.

The two have now been together for six years, and it seems like Taylor truly believes that Joe is The One, with the bridge of “Lover” literally consisting of wedding vows.

In fact, Joe ended up changing Taylor’s entire concept of what love is, with the star admitting in “Daylight” that she used to think love was “red” — fiery and passionate — but it’s actually “golden, like daylight.”

And it is a good thing that Taylor had established that genuine love and support from Joe by the time that she hit another low back in 2019, when she was betrayed by Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun.

Scott helped launch Taylor’s career by signing her to his record label when she was 14 years old, and they worked so closely for 15 years that Taylor viewed him as family. But the relationship completely imploded when Scott refused to sell Taylor the master recordings of her first six albums before brokering a secret $300 million deal with Scooter in a move she’s called her “worst nightmare.”

Speaking to Rolling Stone at the time, Taylor said of Scott: “I thought I knew what betrayal felt like, but this stuff that happened with him was a redefinition of betrayal for me. To go from feeling like you’re being looked at as a daughter to this grotesque feeling of ‘Oh, I was actually his prized calf that he was fattening up to sell to the slaughterhouse that would pay the most.’”

And Taylor’s 2020 song “My Tears Ricochet” appears to be about this betrayal. In one standout line, she says that Scott had “turned into [his] worst fears,” suggesting that he’d once vowed not to become a stereotypical moneygrubbing record industry exec. She also mused that the pain he caused her would “ricochet,” leaving him with “sleepless nights.” This prompted her to cleverly describe her masters as “stolen lullabies.”

Taylor also told Entertainment Weekly that the song reflects on the fact that “this person that you trusted more than anyone in the world is the person that can hurt you the worst,” which is probably why she found herself unable to leave the situation “with grace.” She also maintains that no matter what had happened between them, she never deserved the “pain” that Scott caused.

She goes on to suggest that Scott prioritized trying to save his own skin in the fallout from the deal with Scooter, and that he will eventually regret his decision to choose profit over her, realizing that he should have kept her in his life — and career — forever.

This concept also appears in “It’s Time To Go,” where Taylor describes “begging” Scott to let her buy her masters until her “knees bled.” But she realizes now that although his “greed” secured her “past” for himself, she has the future — and that’s all that matters.

Scooter also doesn’t get away unscathed, with Taylor previously claiming that he had “incessantly bullied” and “manipulated” her for years — and had encouraged his clients, including Kanye, to do the same.

Taylor alludes to this manipulation in her song “Mad Woman,” where she accuses Scooter of purposefully antagonizing her until she retaliated in his bid to publicly brand her as “crazy” and “angry.”

She also suggests that Scooter exploits other singers for his own benefit and uses them as stepping stones in his career, even taking a jab at his personal life.

The 2020 song references cheating and preceded reports that Scooter had been unfaithful to his then-wife, Yael Cohen Braun, and had an affair with Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Erika Jayne.

So, as you can see, through epic songwriting skills and generous oversharing, Taylor has gifted us so much behind-the-scenes intel over the last 16 years.

We don’t yet know how many more hidden details lie in her new release, Midnights, out today. But I for one cannot wait to find them. ●

9 notes · View notes

greatwyrmgold · 1 year

Text

Community College Hero: Trial By Fire

...is a video game I played for four and a half hours back in January 2017. It's an "interactive novel" wherein You get a scholarship to superhero college and do stuff.

The Steam page talks about romancing one of six characters, investigating a new villain, property damage liability, and character customization. It also lists two different word counts (168,000 and 176,000), which makes me wonder how you count words for this kind of narrative in the first place.

I don't remember much about it, but I decided to replay it and write up some thoughts.

Conclusion

A lot of this post is rambly and stream-of-consciousness, so I figured I should put this first.

There are absolutely parts I like, particularly the characters. None of them are deep, but as a supporting cast, they work well enough. I could see myself liking them if they were in a better context. But their context is a text adventure with slow pacing and a poor attention span.

I just can't find any angle to enjoy this from. The plot progresses too slowly for me to get invested in it. The character-conversation scenes are short and shallow, and at least in the early game it splits its focus between about a dozen characters instead of focusing on a smaller cast you can spend more time with. And neither the world nor prose are good enough to enjoy just soaking in the superhero community college atmosphere.

Gameplay

It's a very basic game, more complicated than a CYOA book but less complicated than many visual novels. It's told almost entirely through text, with the occasional piece of art. There's zero audio, not even a looping royalty-free track from Kevin MacCleod or something. (It's probably an engine limitation, because boy is this engine limited.)

The publisher has an extensive library of such games, the earliest being Choice of the Dragon. I feel like the format fits a freemium mobile game better than a $5 Steam title, but I bought CCH, so what do I know.

The game has stats, but unlike most crunchier visual novels, it doesn't do much to convey what affects them or what effects they have. It doesn't help that the stats are named things like "Thud" and "Yay" and "Hmmm"—defense, popularity, and awareness, respectively. There's a list explaining what the stats mean at the bottom of your character sheet, but it's not particularly near your stat list. Also: If you realize the character sheet needs to remind players which stat is what, you should rename at least some of the stats.

And balance seems off; at one point in the early game, I glanced at my character sheet and noticed that I had inflated Yay to 23 when the other seven summed to 19. I wasn't trying to be super-popular at the expense of everything else, I just kept being a nice/cool guy and stumbled into obscene popularity.

Relationships with various characters are tracked, but it's not always clear what raises or lowers them. Unlike the stats, you can usually take an educated guess; agreeing with your classmate makes them like you more, criticizing a teacher's lesson plan and general approach to teaching makes them like you less, even if you're obviously right. But sometimes, I would just have no clue. Why does Professor Downfall hate me more than the teachers who I've ignored or criticized when the worst I've done in her class is get beaten up?

Choice

In this kind of game, layer choice and expression is the most important aspect of the game. And while there are some positives, I found the game rather restrictive.

First, some positives. When you pick your gender, you can pick "neither" as well as male/female, and you can independently pick your sexuality (with "bi "both" and "neither" as options). It's no 2064: Read Only Memories, but it's pretty solid.

The game also gives you a bit of flexibility in how you develop relationships with other characters. You might need to remind the game that you're trying to be friendly two or three times in a row, but being friendly doesn't lock you into any particular romance, which is nice.

However, the game occasionally just decides to have you do stuff. If I was given the option, I'd have gladly volunteered at the children's hospital with my paper classmate, but the game didn't give me the option. Stuff like that makes the design feel less polished than it should, considering that the game is 99% text.

It doesn't help that some dialogue options are very bluntly playing into four superhero personality archetypes—Brooder, Charmer, Jokester, Traditionalist. The game doesn't encourage you to pick one "alignment" and stick with it, but there's a certain...lack of nuance in the options. For instance: When one of your classmates suggests a rather ineffective-sounding study plan of "look at clouds and ask quiz questions," your options are to call it dumb, say it sounds nice, or go along with it silently.

And even if it's not a "What kind of hero are you?" question, there are still times when you're provided with two extreme, specific options without any kind of middle ground. Lots of games with a focus on that sort of choice run into this problem. It's still annoying.

It's also more prominent, because most games offer this kind of question when you need to do or say something. CCH:TBF, on the other hand, sometimes asks what you think about something another character says, absent such action. There might be multiple options which involve caring about it for various reasons, but "I don't have a strong opinion" is often not an option. And again, sometimes the options are very specific.

Though on the bright side, when you're asked about your intentions, you are allowed to lie.

Structure/Pacing

After character creation, you go into a long section that's literally just conversations with other characters, meant to establish their character traits (and possibly figure out what romance you're angling for). Most good visual novels would try to mix these in with some form of exposition or plot advancement; if they couldn't do multiple things per scene, they'd at least alternate between different kinds of scene, or make you pick a couple characters to talk to, or something.

It doesn't help that the pacing of the main plot is extremely slow, bogged down by all these aimless scholastic vignettes. If you want to see how that in medias res opening goes down, or what's going on with the Contrarian, or see how the protagonist's background comes to bite him, you need to wade through hours of fluff for crumbs of plot.

And even if you like visual novel fluff, you're liable to walk away disappointed. The scenes tend to be short and low on detail, with many conversations reduced to a few key lines and a summary. And worse, it's impossible to focus on the parts you like. If you get a couple scenes with characters you like in a row, they'll be followed by characters you don't have an opinion of, classwork, crumbs of plot, a meeting with the Dean, etc.

I tried to give CCH the best chance it could have. Tried to meet it on its own terms. One of us failed, and I'm inclined to blame the game. I can't see why it would be appealing to sit down and play.

Maybe the problem is that I was sitting down to play it on my PC. Maybe it would work better if I was playing a scene at a time on my phone or something. But this game was sold on Steam. The new platform should have been considered when designing the game.

Saves

There aren't really any. You can close the game or turn off your PC and progress will be saved, but you boot up right on the "page" where you left off, no menu or anything. You can't maintain multiple saves, or save right before a dialogue choice in case the writer wrote you saying something unexpected, or undo a transition if you accidentally skip past an entire page, or anything. Your only options are to continue or restart, erasing all your progress.

It's a very basic system that works well for games you can complete in a couple hours, but less well for games where you're still in the prologue by then.

Worldbuilding

Zeeple

This world's term for metahumans is "Z-person," which is dumb in a way that would be charming if it didn't also feel kinda lazy. But it's not as bad as it sounds; they're named after Zenith Shields, which are a...unique origin for metahumans.

Basically, SDI worked in this universe, resulting in nine of the USA's biggest cities getting shields that "purportedly protected [them] from nuclear strikes". Apparently those nine cities hold 20% of the population, which sounds wrong (NYC has <5%, and it's way bigger than most cities), but I convinced myself not to crunch the numbers. Especially since there's a bigger problem.

RIots broke out in unprotected cities and the economy stalled for over a decade. In addition, those living in shielded cities were physically unable to leave (emphasis mine). Z-Cities were arguably safe from nuclear attacks, but they were prisons.

How does this work?? Putting aside questions of why the Zenith Shields can't be lowered when there's no imminent danger of attack, how do these cities function? To date, humanity has not built a single city which can fulfill all its needs using only facilities within city limits. Food alone would be an impossible challenge with modern tech, unless we urban-renewal'd Manhattan. Do the Zenith Shields cordon off the tri-county area? (Is that how they cover 20% of the population?)

Anyways, the Cold War lasted until 1996, by which time a whole generation of city kids had grown up absorbing Zenith Shield radiation. Starting in 1997, the media noticed that some of those people developed "unique abilities"; these became known as Zenith People, Z-People, Zeniths, or Z's. In my opinion, they should've lead with Zeniths and dropped Z-People and maybe Z's.

The game obviously never calls Zenith People zeeple, but I will, because I think it's funny to do so.

Anyways, the Zeniths have an official Power Grade system, which I think is kinda goofy. Each grade is about twice as powerful as the last; Grade 1 is presumed capable of defeating five "standard humans," with each grade thereafter doubling that. Grade-2 zeeple can defeat 10 people each, Grade-3 20, Grade-5 80, Grade-10 a bit over 2,500. Grade-10 zeeple are considered global threats.

Now, "defeat X standard humans" is a pretty wibbly-wobbly kind of power level. But I think most people would agree that a "global threat" should be able to defeat at least half a division of ordinary soldiers, and it doesn't sound like that's necessarily the case.

This is just a very silly power level system, one where the provided details make things sillier.

Cape Institutions

Prestige University for Heroes was founded in 1997, right after people learned zeeple were a thing. Apparently Mega Cat (one of the first famous zeeple) worked to found it, along with "federal and state agencies".

PUH trains and educates heroes, and also "has worked with the government to test Zeniths and objectively measure their power levels". I assume PUH started as a research institution and became a hero training facility once there were more heroes who needed training, but that's 100% benefit of the doubt.

There are two other hero programs noted. Savior School in San Fransisco, like PUH, offers a four-year hero degree. But this isn't Ivy League Hero, this is Community College Hero. Speck Community College (in unremarkable Speck, Nebraska) offers a four-semester program that will give you an Associate in Arts degree and prepare you for a potential transfer to PUH or SS.

The different hero degree programs have different requirements. For instance, Savior School won't accept any applicants below Grade 3, and most of their "advanced students" are Grade-4. PUH requires Grade 5, while SCC will accept anyone of at least Grade-1. Good luck transferring out with that kind of score, though.

Savior School's founders, Booksmart and Streetsmart, founded their school about seven years ago, with two stated motivations. First, they want to broaden the range of students accepted to hero training programs, both in terms of power levels and in terms of ethnicity and sexual orientation. Second, they want there to be multiple hero training programs; previously, Mega Cat and PUH had a monopoly that Booksmart and Streetsmart want to break. (It also sounds like Streetsmart thinks Mega Cat is a wimp.)

There's also the Diabolical Dozen, "the world's premier group of villains based somewhere in southern Florida" (of course). They also have a minimum Grade requirement of 8, which means they could potentially be defeated by a small crowd if they attacked a high school graduation. Well, the text says they could defeat an entire division of over 15,000 soldiers, but I assume that most of that comes from the more powerful members, like Lady Ash (who I assume is the Siberian to the D12's Slaughterhouse Nine).

The Dozen haven't been super active recently, but the in medias res opening has the main character fighting three members, so that won't last long.

Cape Culture

The application process for Speck Community College's hero program is pretty impractical. You're not allowed to give them identifying information like name or address, meaning that just submitting an application requires a bunch of spy movie bullplop. I can only imagine how bad the big universities are. Anyways, this continues when you actually start attending classes; you're required to wear your costume basically whenever you aren't alone.

Characters

%charname

The second-person main character (who i will herein call Yuu, after P4's similarly blank slate) is a zerson geek. That's the one personality trait the game assigns you, and it's a pretty extreme one. Victoria Dallon and Izuku Midoriya think he should tone it down.

Yuu isn't a zerson; they're the one normal human in the SCC hero course. But that's not the only unique thing about them; they were raised by a petty supervillain! A fact that the game doesn't dwell on.

You are given a wide variety of character customization options, though many of the choices are a bit...limited. You can type in whatever you like for your names, but you're limited in most other details to options the developers picked.

My %charname

A marksman with an anarchist streak, named Marxman. In his civilian identity, he's a Japanese kid named Hei Yuu, because I like dumb puns. He tries to present as a classical superhero, clad in red/white/blue spandex with a half-mask. He's still intensely distrustful of most formal authorities, though. Marxman tries to be cordial with all of his peers who aren't asshats, hoping to befriend them.

In my head, he's hoping to start a superhero team with his classmates who aren't accepted to PUH or Savior School—a team which will ultimately be open to anyone with a good heart and strong arm, including ones left out by even the SCC program. But obviously this isn't gonna come up in the game.

This section was mostly an excuse to share a couple terrible puns. Though while I'm here, I might as well share other details.

The weapon Marxman was given is a slingshot. I guess Hawkeye and Green Arrow were a bit too obviously murder-capable for the kind of stories they wanted to tell.

He did well at his law midterm, but got Ds in the others due to varying combinations of being a shitty close-quarters fighter and refusing to accept the premise of the tests.

Fellow Students

There are a bunch of them, and the game doesn't do much to help you remember which is which.

Tress is not a death octopus in a prosthetic body. She's a chipper redhead who can control her hair and make it grow. Like the other Tress, her powers are useful in the capture-the-flag teambuilding exercise her group goes through.

There's also a character named Rain, who I mention here because that's also a Breakthrough name. This Rain is a girl with water powers.

Dirty Girl seems like she'd have an interesting character design if this was an actual visual novel with...art. Anyways, her powers make big clouds of smoke. She has a pragmatic streak and little respect for authority, so I feel like she makes a good teammate for Marxman. One represents the philosophical, reasoned kind of anarchy; the other represents the primal, emotional kind.

Stunner is a big gold-armored guy who makes shockwaves. The first impression he left was when he got mad that we tried to console Tress about losing capture-the-flag instead of apologizing for our lackluster performance. Part of that lackluster performance is that Marxman's weapons are a bit too injurious for a lighthearted training exercise, but that didn't stop Stunner from going all-out. I don't like him much. He's paragon enough to refuse to spy on his classmates for a grade, though.

Origami is one of the younger students (19 instead of the early 20's most students claim to be), and the one who volunteers at the children's hospital. She's optimistic and kindhearted in a remarkably generic manner. I can't tell if the game is intending to frame her as someone who drags her classmates to charitable volunteer activities or if that's just a side effect of the rough game design; it would provide her some much-needed texture.

Stoic is a seemingly emotionless girl. Her power seems to be a force-field-based invulnerability, reminiscent of Victoria Dallon, if it didn't turn off and also made her immobile. Stunner hates fighting her, which he has to do amusingly often.

Combat Wombat is a dork in impractically large power armor. Which resembles a turtle more than a wombat; it stands for Wondrously Original Mobile Brute with Advanced Tech. The bulk and clumsiness of the armor is frequently the butt of jokes, which...fair. But he's also the butt of a few jokes for being a video-game-playing nerd, which feels like a weird shot to make.

SCC Educators & Faculty

Professor Sandy McCormick is a mundane lawyer. She's the no-nonsense professor, who doesn't approve of having a bunch of untrained zeeple Zeniths running around on municipal property. Imagine the potential liability lawsuits! Her first class starts with a big PowerPoint slide reading "Welcome to HELL (Hero & Enemy Law & Liability)", so she can't be all bad.

Professor Downfall, like most of the SCC hero teachers, is a superhero. She wears paramilitary gear and has a spartan attitude to match. As far as she's concerned, the most important thing for a superhero to learn is how to break people and things.

Professor Hedonist (who looks like a well-dressed marble statue) takes the polar opposite point. He seems kinda sleazy, but serves as a philosophical counterpoint to Downfall. The professors do a pretty good job in that regard (aside from Nil). Anyways, he's a transfer from Savior School who teaches "Basics of Defense".

Professor Nil is mysterious. That's his whole deal. His class is all about protecting and uncovering secrets. He's annoying—partly because he's such a nothing character, partly because what bits of personality he shows aren't great.

Nil tells the class that his class involves trying to learn other students' secrets, and then mocks anyone who steps forward when he asks if they'll try to learn other students' secrets. ("Who will trust you now?") So he's mocking you for saying you'll actually do assignments in his stupid class. Also: Basically his entire class is built around digging up your classmates secrets, which is both psychotic and clashes with the fact that students aren't supposed to even let their classmates see their face.

The Dean, Meg Tolly, had intense "wants to be the cool teacher" vibes during orientation. She mostly sticks to those overcompensatingly cheery vibes, but gets serious when the circumstances dictate. Like when telling her new students not to investigate the dangerous new supervillain (who the plot dictates we investigate).

The worst thing I can say about Meg Tolly is that she puts up with Nil's lesson plans. And possibly Hedonist's conduct? It's not clear whether the writers think he's being subtle about it or not.

Villains

Doctor Stench is a backstory villain—specifically, Yuu's father. He was a perfume scientist who became obsessed with the emergence of zeeple. His villainous actions are variely-defined, but he apparently used weird-smelling chemicals and had a nose-themed costume. I'm not sure whether this is a universal feature or a side effect of my choices for why Yuu admired him, but Doctor Stench's villain philosophy had a distinctly anti-capitalist streak, explicitly telling his child that the capitalists are the real supervillains.

The description of his crime reminds me of Mouse Protector. The local "high-wage earners" started getting defenses not to protect themselves, per se, but because being victimized by this nosy dork with a stench ray was embarrassing. Eventually, Stench was captured, at which point he promptly tattled on every crook and villain he'd ever worked with. Including a few scraps of information on the infamous DIabolical Dozen, which lead to him getting stabbed twelve times in jail.

The Contrarian comes off as someone who couldn't decide whether she wanted to be The Joker or The Riddler, without having the talent or charisma to pull either off. You know what she does have, though? Pipe bombs. Also spray paint. Her first attack (during SCC hero orientation) hit a fast food joint and came with graffiti'd anti-consumerist-sounding word salad, her second hit a church and came with some teen-atheist-sounding word salad. ("Just pray to a pie!") She comes off as a faux-nihilist/faux-anarchist sort of troublemaker.

#video games #choice of games #community college hero

2 notes · View notes

dorefasolsido · 11 months

Text

30. A blast from the past

[Elementary School]

Do you still remember any dreams you had a child?

I do, quite a few actually. I dreamt one of my favourite dreams at that time. Always wanted to turn it into an actual story.

What was your favorite game to play back then?

Probably Sims 2.

How many best friends did you make through the years?

Hmm, I had a few. I don't think I really had a best best friend, but I hung out with quite a few kids.

How many enemies?

Okay, sooo, I didn't have a real enemy, but this girl I knew from kindergarten joined my class in second grade. I never really liked her, and let's just say that dislike only grew stronger the more time we spent together in the same class. Seven years in total.

Did anything tragic happen to you when you were little?

My childhood was generally pretty happy. My grandma died when I was 7, though, and I had a serious existential crisis about death around that time. Like, I guess it was the first time I realized everyone will die at some point, so I kept wondering what I would do when my parents die, but even more so, what would happen when I die. This tortured me for quite some time, so much so that I couldn't even read the word "death" somewhere without slightly panicking. I guess I was always kind of anxious, even as a kid.

Did anything absolutely amazing happen?

I don't think there was anything super amazing -- my childhood was just generally happy.

How was your relationship with your parents back then?

Pretty good.

Did you believe in cooties?

We didn't have that here lol

Did you ever get a cootie shot?

Refer to the answer above.

What was your favorite snack to eat?

I'm not sure about snacks, but my grandpa bought this 50g chocolate in blue wrapping for me and my sister every single morning. That was my favourite thing. Also, thanks grandpa for the chocolate addiction lol

Did you own any pets during this time?

Nope.

What was your personality like?

Quiet, shy. Tbh, not much has changed in that regard. Actually, I think in elementary I was more friendly and talkative than at any point after.

What was your favorite song[s]?

I have no clue. I don't think I even listened to music aside from the stuff my parents listened to in the car or cartoon opening themes.

What kind of toys did you like to play with?

Oh I liked anything. I think I mostly played with Barbies and other dolls with my sister though.

[Middle School/Junior High]

How did your personality change from Elementary to Middle School?

I got much quieter and much more awkward. I think this is when social anxiety kicked in, I just had no clue what it was and why I struggled so much to talk to other people. It just felt like I'm totally fucked in the head, basically. And I didn't know how to talk about it to my parents, and they definitely didn't know what that was either. So I was just getting quieter and quieter and lonelier and lonelier. But it got like 1000 worse in high school.

What was your favorite thing to do during this time?

I liked hanging out with my sister and her friends. They were three years younger than me, but it didn't really matter. All of my friends from school lived in a village near the town, which, at the time, felt like it was too far away to hang out often.

Who were some of your closest friends?

Aside from my sister's friends, I had a tiny friend group of three girls in school. Also, I remained friends with one boy who I was close to earlier in elementary.

How often did you get involved with Middle School drama?

I don't think I ever did. I'd hear about it, but it had nothing to do with me.

What kind of "clique" were you in? Or did you not beleive in cliques?

We didn't have cliques per se, but there was a bit of a distinction between who's popular and who isn't. I definitely wasn't. I guess I'd count as a nerd, but my friends weren't.

How did people treat you?

Mostly like I didn't really exist until they needed my help on a test or with homework. Tbh, I didn't mind that, but I hated when people would pull out the "we are friends" card to get me to do stuff for them. Like, no, we're not friends. I'll help you either way, but don't pretend you'll give a shit about me once the test is over. That's especially true for the girl I mentioned above, who went so far as to invite me places to hang out just so she'd ensure my help in school, all the while being condescending and putting me down. I should've told her to fuck off, but I was too scared to at the time.

Do you look back on these years fondly?

Absolutely not. Couldn't pay me to go back there. The only thing I look back on fondly was that tiny friend group I had.

What was your typical kind of lunch during school?

We never had lunch in school lol. We were basically let out on the streets to buy something to eat during the big break. Or you could bring something from home if your parents were inclined to prepare you food.

What school[s] did you go to?

The same elementary/middle school for eight years and then a different high school.

Was it really as bad as some people say Junior High is?

I mean, for me it was bad. Idk what other people say.

Did you like to read?

I loved to read. Which some people actually teased me for at the time, and I find that so stupid now looking back.

What was one good memory you have of this time?

My summer holiday on Thassos with my family. Meeting those other kids and running wild for ten days together was an amazing experience I will never forget.

Were you still enemies with someone from elementary school?

Yeah, the girl I mentioned. I started full on hating her in middle school and could hardly stand her presence. Unfortunately, we were stuck in the same class and she only got worse.

If you could go back and change one thing, what would you change?

I'd get rid of anxiety for sure. And stand up to that girl earlier than I did.

[High School]

Are you still in High School?

No, thank God.

Who were some of your close friends?

I had a little friend group in high school too, first with Ivy and Tanja, and then that expanded to a few other people. I was really close to Tanja for a while, plus, I had Jane who was always my friend but not really in any of my friend groups.

On top of that, I had Chris and Sam, though both of them were long-distance friends. And Anna from middle school.

Who were some of your enemies?

Well, my former enemy went to a different high school, so I was very much enemy-free. Not that it mattered, since high school sucked anyway.

How did your personality change from the previous years?

I was even more anxious than before, which prompted me to try and people please even harder. I wasn't doing well mentally at all. For a little while, I thought I found some good friends but that all fell apart in senior year, which stressed me out enough to basically stop eating (though not on purpose), which then led to some other health problems. Also, I was fighting with my mum all the time. Mostly because she was worried about me, but to me it felt like I couldn't open up to her and like she always blamed me for everything. On top of that, I also blamed myself for everything, I had no idea why simple things felt so difficult to me. So, great times, all in all.

Going in, did you really think they were going to be the best four years ever?

No, but I thought they'd be better than middle school. It was going to be a new school, that girl I disliked would be gone, fresh start. Well then it turned out that like half of my class would be made up from kids I went to elementary and middle school with anyway, so in reality, there was hardly anything fresh about that start.

Were they? [or are they if you're still in High School]

No, they were much worse than I expected. Especially the last two years.

What's one memory of High School can you look back on and grin?

Well even though I made it seem like it was all doom and gloom, there were some okay times. I remember the whole class got addicted to Flappy Bird and played it incessantly during all breaks and classes lol. We even had pictures of everyone standing in the corridor staring at their phones and playing.

Did you ever cry while you were in school?

I only remember I cried when the teacher kicked me out from one class once. It's a long story, but I went out and cried a bit when no one was around. I never cried otherwise, and definitely not in front of others.

How was your love life?

Lol very much non-existent. I had kind of a crush (though I think it was a platonic crush if anything) on this one boy for years, but I never wanted anything out of it and he was an asshole anyway.

How was your social life?

I mean, on the outside, I guess it would look okay, at least in the sophomore and junior year. I had friends, we hung out, went together on breaks, went out on the weekends. I was getting invited to birthday parties. No one was outwardly mean or bullying me. But yeah, when you really dive into it, it wasn't great. The only people I felt close to lived far away, and Tanya, my best friend in high school, basically abandoned me as soon as something better came along. I spent so many birthday parties in the last year feeling totally alone while surrounded by friends, and let me tell you, there's no worse kind of loneliness.

Did you have any teachers that you just absolutely loved?

Hm yeah, our class teacher was cool.

Did you have any teachers that you just absolutely despised?

I'm not sure. I had some I disliked, but I don't remember totally despising anyone.

How were/are your GPA?

Not how it works here and I'm not really sure if I remember now tbh. I was always a pretty great student, though, never struggled with the academic side of things.

Did you know anyone who got pregnant?

Not in our high school, no.

[There's no time like the present]

Do you currently have a job?

Yup, a few too many actually.

What kind of job do you *want* to have?

I mean, I'm cool with what I do. My dream is to become an actual fiction writer though, but idk, I don't think I'm brave enough for that.

What do you like to do on your free time?

What free time lol? When I do have it, though, I like to meet my friends, go out to eat, take walks, read, travel, go to gigs and concerts...

What's your relationship with your parents now?

It's good now, it got better as soon as I moved out for college. I mean, I don't know if I'll ever be able to fully trust them to open up about certain things, but I do know they have my back most of the time and they're trying their best.

Do you own any pets?

Yes, we have a cat.

How many places have you travelled to?

Lots, I don't feel like counting.

Do you own a cell phone? If so, what kind?

Yup, a Huawei.

What are your goals for the future?

I don't want to think too long term, so to go to Transylvania, do more things by myself (travel by myself, for example), see BTS in a concert, and yeah. Practice my Japanese more.

What's your favorite kind of drink?

Hot chocolate. As for alcoholic ones, I like Tequila Sunrise.

Did you ever get into the Twilight saga craze?

Of course. I made my mum buy all the books. She still holds it against me lol

What about the Harry Potter craze?

Yup, I grew up on Harry Potter.

Where is your mind at: The Past, the Present, the Future, or all around?

Lately it's been a bit too much on the future and I don't like that very much. I used to be much better at grounding myself in the present.

What's a really good movie you've seen recently?

Talk to Me.

Are you happy where you are right now?

No, but it's not really about where I am. I mean, my life circumstances are great and I have my dream job so theoretically, I should be happy. Sadly, my mental health is taking a bit of a nosedive.

#surveys #personal

1 note · View note

servin-up-surveys · 2 years

Text

survey #102

(taken january 17th; uploading surveys taken while gone)

What is the most meaningful gift you’ve ever given? I worked extremely hard in art class making an anatomically correct heart out of clay that I painted and then put in a shadow box with a poem I wrote dedicated to him as the background for Jason once. I think I gave it to him as a Valentine's Day gift. I sometimes wonder if he still has it.

Whatever happened to the first person you ever loved? I have no idea what he's up to these days. It's probably better that way.

What is the biggest difference between you and your best friend? I am very emotional and he's barely at all. Or at least, he doesn't know how to show it.

Do you currently have a job? No, but I'm kinda regularly looking online... and it's stressing me out.

What brand is your vacuum cleaner? I don't remember, but something good. My mom's brother gifted her a vacuum cleaner once when she mentioned all she really wanted to buy for herself with the inheritance was a quality vacuum.

Could you win a staring contest with someone? Absolutely not, eye contact is extreeemely uncomfortable for me.

Name the last video game you’ve played. Girt and I are still playing Silent Hill 2. <3 We're in the prison area now, so making real progress.

Name someone who has changed your life for the better. The psychiatrist I went to for many years since my partial hospitalization program. I only ever left him because my insurance changed and he doesn't take Medicaid.

Can you say the alphabet in more than one language? Yeah, in German.

Do you ever get carsick? No.

Did you used to watch Blue's Clues? I sure did, I loved it. I got so emotional when Steve's actor published that video a year or two back addressing our generation.

What is the best way to tell someone that they stink? I just... wouldn't. Especially if I didn't know the person very well, because I don't know their living situation or if they have access to (hot) water, etc. Also as someone who has difficulty showering enough out of self-worth issues, I just don't think it's a good idea. I guess MAYBE I would if it was someone I was very close to and they were going to like, an interview or something, but I can't even imagine how I'd manage to do it.

Which movie’s musical score is truly memorable? Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron stands out.

What’s your favorite scene from the movie Titanic? I don't really remember because I've seen the movie only once a very long time ago. The last scene is super memorable though, where Rose throws the necklace (I think it was a necklace?) Jack gave her into the ocean. God did that movie make me cry, I remember that well. It's funny, I actually saw it while in the mental hospital and pretty much everyone was crying, like goddamn what a choice for mentally ill people at their worst lmfao

First kiss: quick, sloppy, and forgettable or passionate and memorable? It was quick and painfully memorable.

What is your favorite band's most popular song? Ozzy's is pretty obviously "Crazy Train," and I'm going to assume "Du hast" is Rammstein's because it was featured in The Matrix.

Are you listening to music right now? Yeah, I have "Little Dark Age" by MGMT on. Girt got me into it a long time ago.

Have you ever made the opposite sex cry? Yes.

Do you say the "H" in the word “herb”? No. I did for a very long time though, until I learned considerably late that it's silent.

What have you thought about most today? Girt and how he's coping. He's talked more with me today and seems a bit more perked up, but I'm still worried. I wanna see him really, really bad. This question prompted me to decide I'm bringing him lunch tomorrow btw lmao

If I were a doll, the accessories packaged with me would be: Probably like a little toy computer and a mini model of my iPod. OH and don't forget a pill organizer lmfao

What type of food do you eat at your grandparents? My grandma tended to make all the things I didn't like, honestly, lmao. Though granted we saw each other super super rarely.

I find the thought of childbirth… fucking TERRIFYING and disgusting. "It's a miracle!" no bitch that is horror beyond our comprehension

What sea creature scares you? GIANT SQUID

What was the last thing to make you cry? Thinking Girt was going to leave.

What serial killer do you find most disturbing? Gotta be honest, I don't know nearly enough about like, any in order to give you a proper answer.

Who knows a secret or two about you? Jason, Girt, Mazzy, Tez, Mom... Really any of the VERY few people in my real, face-to-face life who know I RP. I guess the Joel situation I got in as a pre-teen could been seen by some as a secret, especially when SO few people know, but it's not something I'd deliberately hide anymore if it was relevant to share and haven't felt the need to conceal it for many, many years. I'll fully admit I was a backstabbing snake.

Where is your sister right now? I would assume they're home now.

Does anyone regularly tell you they love you? The two very regular people are Mom and Girt, but I feel like Mazzy and Tez do it a notable amount too.

Any posters of a band on your bedroom wall? I have multiple, but I am ACTUALLY considering taking them down, amazingly. I really, really am thinking of lessening the decor in my crowded room and making it a more nature-based, peaceful location that I can go to to feel safe and relax soundly.

Do you think you’ve already met your soulmate? I don't believe in soulmates.

Do you share your bedroom with anyone? My snake Venus' terrarium is in there, and Roman almost always sleeps with me. He sometimes roams to other places in the house to snooze during the night, though.

What’s your crush’s/boyfriend/husband’s name? Donald Jr. but I've always known him as Girt.

And their occupation? He's worked in a tire factory for like, a decade.

Do you think it’d be cool to have your body mummified after you die? No, honestly. I completely respect the cultural reasonings and even find mummies super fascinating, but for me PERSONALLY, I'd be very grossed out by the idea of it being done to myself.

Are you leaving the house tomorrow? Yes; I'm buying Girt lunch and bringing it to him at work, and I'm going to try and stop by the tattoo parlor to drop my deposit on my tattoo and get the appointment date!

Do you enjoy romantic movies, even when they’re cliche? To a degree. Sometimes they're just too excruciatingly ordinary/expectable, but I do very much enjoy a well-written love story.

Would you or do you allow your children to watch television? Yes I would, though especially when young, I would try to set limits. If I have kids, I really don't want them to face a technology addiction like I have. I want them to take adequate time to be present in the real world that is directly before them, experience this one trip they've got on Earth.

Can you read music? Not well anymore. Some things, sure, they've stuck with me, but not a lot.

Have you been to McDonald’s in the past month? Honestly, way too much. I have been very bad with fast food lately and it needs to stop.

Have you ever slept over at your best friend’s house? Not with my current one yet. He prefers coming over here.

Is your mother diabetic? She is, actually. Runs in the family. Her sugar level is VERY volatile so she can't mess up/miss those meds. It frighteningly regularly goes so low that she has to take emergency measures like glucose tablets and stuff.

Are you? No, but it's something I really do need to watch. I don't think I'm considered pre-diabetic anymore, my doctors keep track of that stuff closely and have told me I'm good right now, but I know I'm still at high risk for it just by genes, personal history, and lifestyle. And I do NOT want it. Diabetes has either affected or straight-up taken too many people in my life.

Would you like to learn how to make ceramic pottery? Eh, not especially. I mean, I'm not AGAINST it, but I'm just not very interested.

Ever sang someone to sleep? No.

What was the last TV show you were hooked on? Lol Girt and I went on a nearly full-day binge of Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives the other day when he was here. We have streaks where we just let the episodes keep going and going and going... lol. It's interesting stuff though and always makes us way too hungry.

Have you ever started a book and never finished it? Yeah. I remember in specific I once got pretty damn deep into this MASSIVE book that was a story about a guy who adopted/raised a baby fawn or something like that but I just like... randomly stopped. I do think I tried reading it at too young an age though, it was pretty advanced, even for me at the age I tried it. I just found it with some googling: The Yearling. Apparently it's a classic. Maybe one of these days I'll try it again.

Do you have a favorite drummer? Who? Not talent-wise but I definitely have a bias for Rammstein's Christoph Schneider because he is a fucking PEACH

What about a favorite guitarist? Who? Again, talent-wise I really don't know, but I make it obnoxiously obvious I adore Rammstein's Richard Kruspe because he is one of the most charmingly chaotic and adorable human beings ever sobs I'm not supposed to be into 50 y/o men help

Do you ever write fanfic? Of what? I feel like this would surprise people that know how overly invested I get in some things/people, but I don't and never have. Never even read any. Nothing against it, it's just not my thing.

Do you ever READ fanfic? Of what? ^ oh, got ahead of myself

Have you ever thought somebody was plain-looking, but found them attractive once you got to know them better? I initially thought Jason looked kinda weird but then through just loving him he became THE most attractive person on the planet to me when we dated, like genuinely.

What specifically about them made them so beautiful? Look man it took me years to get OVER this dude, I ain't doing this lmfao

What is your #1 dealbreaker with friendships? For a friendship... hm. Being manipulative/gaslighting me over things is a very strong contender. I could also never, ever be friends with a person who thought they were better than everyone else. Well, I could never do that AGAIN. Been there, done that, no seconds please.

Are you interested in fashion? No.

Do you like Led Zeppelin? I enjoy some songs, yeah; "Kashmir" is fuckin legendary with one of the best riffs ever and I also *technically* love "Stairway to Heaven," but it's my #1 trauma-associated song that I physically CANNOT listen to so haven't for many, many years. My mom absolutely adooooores Zeppelin.

Have you ever seen a real-live cop chase? IIII don't think so? Maybe?

#survey #surveys #random questions #personal questions

0 notes

feline-felon · 2 years

Text

I posted 182 times in 2022

That's 182 more posts than 2021!

19 posts created (10%)

163 posts reblogged (90%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@demilypyro

@the-haiku-bot

@lithominium

@staffs-secret-blog

@teaboot

I tagged 147 of my posts in 2022

Only 19% of my posts had no tags

#genuine question - 7 posts

#lgbtqia - 5 posts

#autism - 4 posts

#goncharov - 4 posts

#tumblr - 3 posts

#twitter - 3 posts

#science - 3 posts

#adhd - 3 posts

#tumblr tags - 2 posts

#neurodiversity - 2 posts

Longest Tag: 137 characters

#to say it is always good is lying to yourself yet you cannot allow yourself to wallow in pessimism or else things will not get any better

My Top Posts in 2022:

Why I think there is so much fanfic for a made up movie

Now I don't write fanfic, but I feel like part of the reason writing fanfic for Goncharov (which is really just regular fiction because the movie doesn't actually exist) was so popular (other than it's funny), was because Goncharov in some way does exist, not as a movie but as a writing prompt.

Like, think about it, you have the vague outline of a plot (a Russian gangster travels to Italy and deals with the mafia), you have readymade characters (Goncharov, Katia, Ice Pick Joe), you have relationships between those characters (the homoerotic tension between Goncharov and Andrey, Katia and Sophia's love affair, I.P.J. being an unstable serial killer), and so on. Most of the story's elements are laid out before you.

When I write I often find the hardest part is coming up with an idea to write about, but here the outline of a story is all there already, all you have to do is fill in the plot in between.

It reminds me of something OSP's Red said about Robin Hood and why people keep writing about him; "A bunch of fully developed characters with interesting dynamics and no ironclad plot points to work around? That's a writer's dream!", and that's exactly the same idea with Goncharov, you have a full box of pieces, now all you have to do is put them together in whatever way you want!

5 notes - Posted November 29, 2022

Tumblr users when Twitter actually goes under

7 notes - Posted November 19, 2022

What I wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall in a Twitter meeting right now.

"Employees now cannot work outside of the office, and they also cannot work inside the office. Effective immediately, all Twitter employees shall perform work in the doorframe."

11 notes - Posted November 18, 2022

Why Chris Pratt as Mario might be secretly genius, actually.

WAIT, WAIT HOLD ON, let me explain before you cast your judgement. For the record, I'm not a Chris Pratt/Marvel fanboy or anything and I have no clue if the movie is gonna be any good.

Okay, so, Crisp Rat as Mario J. Mario is a weird casting choice, and from the trailer which came out in *checks notes* October, we can see that Mario is lacking his iconic Italian accent, seemingly replaced with a subtle New York accent. This, I'd imagine, would've copped a lot more flak if not for the fact that everyone was talking about how good Jack Black was as Bowser.

I mean, it makes sense why people were hesitant about Mario's casting, seeing as most of the time, Mr. Pratt's roles are in the "Boring Generic Action Hero" category, and the only other voice acting role he's played (that I know of), is Emmet from The Lego Movie, a construction worker whose main trait is that he's a boring generic nobody who doesn't stand out at all (remember this, it'll be important later). But what if I told you that this penchant for genericism is what makes this whole thing brilliant?

See, the thing with characters in the Super Mario games is that a lot of them aren't really "characters", per se, but tropes. Archetypes that can be fitted into whatever story you want to tell with them. For example, you have the damsel in distress, Princess Peach, who is kidnaped by Bowser, the evil dragon, before being rescued by the gallant knight, Mario. Except that Mario isn't a knight in shining armor, he's a mustached, middle-aged man in overalls. That's because Mario isn't just any old hero, he's an Everyman. The humble, hard-working, blue-collar man that people can see themselves in. He's not the wielder of the Master Sword, or a blue hedgehog that can run faster than sound, or a robot from the future with a gun for a hand, Mario is just a regular guy with a plumbing business. The whole point of this trope is that Anyone can be Mario. The baker from down the road can defeat armies of goombas and koopas, your math teacher can brave eight worlds of levels to get to bowser's castle, your little sister can save the princess, and so can the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, or even an everyday construction worker.

You see where I'm going with this now? What I'm saying is that Chris Pratt might just be perfect for Mario not in spite of his previous generic roles, but because of them, that because Mario serves as a vessel for the player to project on and relate to, this "generic guy-ness" is precisely who Mario as an archetype is.

Of course, this thesis fails to take into consideration that Mario has arguably moved beyond his initial generic roots (and by generic here, I mean relating to a large group or universally applicable, I'd be burned at the stake for saying Mario is a boring character), and has since become a beloved character archetype in his own right, as well as the simple fact that the disconnect between what we've seen so far of Prattio and the performances of Charles Martinet will take a fair bit of getting used to, but that's not what this essay is about. I am not positing that Chris Pratt is the new definitive voice of Mario, nor am I guaranteeing that Pratt's performance in the movie will 100% be good. What I am saying, however, is that it can work, and why it is completely possible that it will. Whether it actually will work still remains to be seen, but there is still a chance. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

13 notes - Posted November 14, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

By making this post have seventeen syllables, I will trick Haiku Bot into showing everyone this post. Observe:

Look what I can do I'm circumventing systems and you can't stop me

982 notes - Posted November 19, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

So, I guess that was my first couple months on Tumblr, obligatory apology to Haiku Bot again (it was for science). Also, I seemingly have a lot of questions judging by my most used tags (no surprises there, lol). Anyway, keep the memes coming and I'll reciprocate, happy holidays, see y'all next year! :D

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

1 note · View note

theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin · 4 years

Note

When I saw 'Romanians' mentioned in your last post I had a wtf moment cause I have only watched the movies and I don't think I've ever noticed their existence. Regardless, I just had to read the wiki page and it is hillarious to me cause coincidence or not they seem to be named after the psychopathic ruler 'Vlad the impaler' and his cousin 'Stefan the great'(he might have murdered more people than his cousin known as the impaler, but you know he is great). Also, what do you think of them? Sorry for the rant...

You have no idea what you’ve unleashed.

I love the Romanians because they are, hands down, the trashiest, weirdest, lamest, loser vampires in Twilight canon.

Just, these two are so hilariously beautiful.

First off, while Meyer undoubtedly named them with Vlad Tepish and Stefan the Great in mind, the Romanians are actually much older. We don’t have exact dates, but we know the Romanians (then presumably the Dacians), held great power over their territory for a thousand years before the Volturi had truly established themselves. After the Volturi took on and won against Amun’s coven in Egypt (and took the grateful Demetri off Amun’s hands making Amun still bitter thousands of years later) they waged war against the Romanians and won. (Vlad and Stefan are still very bitter but give us the silver lining of “oh yeah, well, we’re only partly petrified. SO TAKE THAT STUPID VOLTURI!”)

Vlad, Stefan, and Vlad’s wife were the only survivors. The Romanians, being one of the most evil and trashy covens in Twilight, decided to take on Volterra by amassing an army of 100 vampires. Hilariously, they had poor timing, this is a decade after Aro acquired Jane and Alec. The entire army is defeated in a second, Vlad’s wife is murdered, and by 810 AD, it’s just Vlad and Stefan.

They’ve remained losers the Volturi don’t take seriously ever since. Every decade, Demetri pays them a visit to remind them that yes, the Volturi does remember them and can find them any time they want to. Even more hilariously, Vlad and Stefan take this very seriously, and are constantly on the run from the Volturi, never aware that the Volturi actually don’t care. At all.

Point being, given these guys, first it’s entirely likely their original names are not Vlad and Stefan. We see many of the vampires of the ancient world periodically change their name. We have Chelsea and Demetri, who are canonically acknowledged as having done this. Given when and where they were born, we can assume Marcus and Caius were not originally Marcus and Caius. Similarly, we can assume Aro’s name was originally far longer as well.

None the less, it would be just like these two to name themselves after these Romanian human warlords, one of whom serves and the inspiration for the modern vampire myth in Europe. And then, insist, of course, that the human rulers were actually named after Vlad and Stefan, because the humans still worship them, you know.

They’re going to be back on top any day now, you’ll see.

That’s another thing worth getting into. The Romanians are evil. I’m not exaggerating this, of all the vampires in Twilight, they are the most appalling (and this is including James, Maria and the southern war lords, Joham... well not Joham, he’s a special brand of evil). These guys had a thousand year reign of terror in Dacia. Humans were butchered seemingly by entire villages, they made humans their slaves and demanded worship and sacrifice. When the humans periodically tried to overthrow them, they slaughtered them all, presumably placed their heads on spikes, and used them to taunt those few surviving humans.

When they lost power, they made an army a hundred vampires strong, which given what we see of the newborns in Seattle (who were only around twenty and still far too large to control), probably wiped out several large settlements in eastern Europe. Didn’t matter, just as long as they got rid of the Volturi.

And they miss those glory days dearly.

They actively reminisce about in Breaking Dawn to an oblivious Bella, who is just so happy these very important and impressive Europeans are here to help her beautiful daughter and so impressed they they’ve been fighting the corrupt Volturi for thousands of years (which is another bit of hilarity we’ll get into). You know, when/if the Volturi fall, the Romanians will be the first in line to rape the women and enslave us all. Good times, good times.

But back to them being trash people.

Vlad and Stefan are utterly destitute, their entire coven is destroyed, and yet they still insist they’re a Big Fucking Deal. Not only that, but just their every action is beyond weird. They talk in unison like Fred and George Weasley, they’re these ridiculously tiny men dressed as stereotypical vampires, and they show up out of nowhere on your doorstep saying, “So, hear you’re starting an insurrection against Volterra, Carlisle, we want in” (While Carlisle, I’m sure, just dies a thousand times inside).

They then talk to Bella all about how they fight the corruption of the Volturi. What is the corruption, you ask? Well, the Volturi drove them out of their kingdom and liberated the human slaves. Then they imposed this stupid law where you couldn’t eat humans in broad daylight. Then when the Romanians tried to invade Italy they killed them all.

The Romanians will expose the Volturi’s crimes here and now. They stand for justice, peace, and Renezel--Renpunz--Renesmee. (The Romanians decidedly do not come for Renesmee, they hear about Carlisle’s army through the vampire European rumor mill, which just shows how out of hand it all got because now Carlisle’s amassing an army to protect the immortal child his son made. They show 0 interest in Renesmee.)

They give me serious McPoyle vibes.

More, beautifully, everything they touch becomes tainted.

Laurent, another beautiful loser character, starts life as a French courtier in Versailles. When he’s turned into a vampire, he assumes the vampire world works like Versailles. It works nothing like Versailles.

He seeks out those vampires with the greatest power.

Well, vampires in general are cannibalistic homeless nomads who care nothing for power.

This brings him, beautifully, to the Romanians. They insist to Laurent they’re super cool and powerful, Laurent believes them, but either Laurent eventually clues in or realizes something’s not right here. So, he goes to seek out the real power, the Volturi.

Unfortunately, Laurent is a loser, the Volturi is not court, and Aro has no need for some lackey trying to get in his good graces. Plus, Laurent hung out willingly with Vlad and Stefan. And anyone who does that...

So, Aro goes, “Ew, no, leave.”

Laurent is convinced, even when canon rolls around and he’s sunk so low as to hang out with James and Victoria (also loser vampires), that Aro will call him back any day now.

Aro never does. Laurent is eaten by untrained sixteen-year-old shape shifters.

But yes, point being, I imagine that in this modern era the Romanians would have a Go Fund Me for purchasing the blow torches they’ll use to destroy the Volturi once and for all. They also have a YouTube channel which is unintentionally dungeon porn, in which they cover their heads in bags so as not to be recognized, and talk about the good old days in thick Romanian accents. It’s a very popular YouTube channel, nobody understands why they wear so much body glitter.

Oh, right, Bella.

Bella is so beautiful with these guys. So, in Breaking Dawn, Bella actually takes the Romanians seriously. They’re all I describe above and more, they’re not hiding it, they’re full McPoyle (including the taking over the world built). Jake even tells Bella he finds them weird as hell. Bella thinks they’re great.

No, really, she thinks they’re great.

They tell her how they enslaved all the people in their territory, demanded tithes, and would eagerly do so again as soon as they get the chance and she stares at them with wide eyes and thinks about how cool all these vampires who came for precious Renesmee are. (Which, funnily, they actually all came either for Carlisle, because he has a billion friends everywhere, or else as a power grab like the Romanians, or both in Amun’s case. It’s the weirdest, most beautiful, mixture of people.)

Bella has her moments, but loving the Romanians has got to be a top ten for her. My explanation is that she’s so high on vampirism and Renesmee that this is all just great for her. LIFE IS WONDERFUL!

EDIT: I could no longer abide my spelling mistakes, I also edited a bit for cleanliness.

#ask #anon #twilight

235 notes · View notes

theoreticslut · 2 years

Note

🎲 tell me your most recent (weird) dream!

I’ll share mine: it was literally last nights dream so it’s still fresh (my last memorable dream before last night was like 2 months ago)

i was on the run from the cops with my hubs, we were in a hospital and we were riding bikes that each had a basket full of puppies and kitties. no clue why. then we escaped the hospital and were on my old college campus, but we ditched the bikes (and the furry friends) and walked through campus trying not to look suspicious. we were wearing matching tshirts with waffles on them (don’t ask me why, but I remember taking notice of this detail). after a while, we were walking toward this wooded area with a walking trail on campus and we saw people following us. when they got closer, we recognized them. one was this super tall guy that I didn’t actually recognize, the other guy was… Hawaiian shirt Hopper. we all exchanged hugs and they were like “we figured if they’re looking for two people, traveling as four might help us get away”. still don’t know why we’re “getting away”. So we keep walking a they say “don’t worry, our number five is still coming” and I turned around and he was there. joseph quinn. He had his hood up and looked like he was crying or something. Once he caught up, he wouldn’t say why he was upset and we decided it wasn’t a good time to unpack his emotions when we were still on the run. Then we found the nearby creek and crossed the bridge and I woke up.

And yes, I’m aware that my sleep brain mixed fictional characters and real actors. It doesn’t make sense, but it’s not even the weirdest dream I’ve had this year so 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

Oh my god I love this mon! 😂💗 I WISH I’d dream of both Hawaiian shirt hopper & Joseph Quinn!!

Even though I’ve been dreaming a lot more than normal lately, I barely remember them. They’ve been weird in general though in the sense that I can almost tell I’m dreaming which has never happened before??

Regardless, the last one I vaguely remember started with me in the living room & my brother was over on his side of the room playing Xbox.

Side note, he had just shown me a comedy skit thing about how most (if not all) popular songs are composed of the same four repeating chords earlier that day.

So in my dream, I had been thinking this through & realized another song that fit that pattern (I can’t remember what it was for the life of me though) & I was so excited. Dream me was like ‘OMG (brother)!! This one fits it too!’ & I was just so proud that I could hear the notes in my head clear enough to realize it followed the pattern.

& I feel like my dream changed after that but I can’t remember what it changed too. Like I said, I’ve been dreaming a ton lately but can’t remember any of it :/

I know this one isn’t that weird, but I have others from when I was younger I could share if you wanted?! & they are definitely weird 😂😭

#theoreticslut's 3k celebration #mon #weird asks #dreams

4 notes · View notes

motherflecker · 2 years

Note

top 5 food dishes from asian dramas you've seen that you want to try or already have tried?? (is that a correct question sunshine jkvivjv)

IT IS IT ISSSS this is perf bc i was totally just talking about this recently w a friend of mine

my number one is just grilled meat, straight up. the idea of being able to go to a food stall and grill up a bunch of meat on a hot plate and eat it up seems so fucking lavish to me. i don't know why the concept isn't as popular in the states. it's always full on restaurants and a whole fucking to-do when i just want to eat pork belly and listen to true crime podcasts before stumbling home a little drunk on sake, come onnnnnnn

thanks enchante bc now i really wanna try khai palo, i know it's some sort of egg and pork belly stew but is it sour? savory? sweet? i have no clue and i hesitate to try and cook it myself, bc what if i don't like it and i have this huge pot of food just sitting there that i need to eat? damn

fucking oishi. i must know. i must fucking know how this tastes. the other day i drank a coconut milk w chewy pieces drink from thailand that i picked up at the speciality grocery store but it wasn't the king. i need to taste this drink.

obligatory but every single dessert pharm makes in uwma. i can't remember the names of them all but they all look so tasty and cute and i want to eat them with my mouth. i don't even have much of a sweet tooth but this show (and others like it like bite me and la cuisine) test me when it comes to the desserts.

just a lot of the thai street food in general, i think? i remember in my ride, the chicken hearts and rice meal was super tasty looking (i love chicken hearts). then just every time they order food which is just some rice and meat and mixed veggies. sometimes with an egg too. they're always so accessible and look so filling and i'm mildly jealous at the idea of being able to just get a huge plate of rice and egg and meat from a food stall at any given time. i think about it a lot.

these are all pretty broad but sometimes it's less about the food itself and more the experience?? i love street food, it's the puerto rican in me. and there's so much good looking street food in these shows that i just want to be able to eat it up just as much. i don't know why food like that isn't as common in the states. we can get mysterious hot dogs but we can't get just rice and meat?? wack

#squee chats #guzhu-furen #top 5 #thank you for this!!! had to rly sit and think for a moment

6 notes · View notes

emmys-grimoire · 4 years

Text

Lesson 52 analysis + 53 predictions

Turning this into a routine thing now! They’re fun to write and they’re popular (moreso than my actual commentary posts lmao).

Y’all like my ramblings.

Things guessed correctly from prior lesson

The House of Lamentation was an illusion produced by the fairies

The arc culminated in the completion of the Trial of Patience (star received via Simeon)

The illusion did a number on Simeon's feelings as well due to his fondness for Lucifer and the brothers

They shoved Mammon and Luke off to the side and plopped them back in only after the Satan/Simeon arc was complete. There was no arc for Luke. To be fair, though, they did get more content than I expected even so.

Things guessed wrong

The banshee didn't show up at all. It was a red herring.

There was no significance to the geranium found in the mysterious book

Our adventure also completed the Trial of Generosity. (I incorrectly attributed this to Diavolo, who actually gave us the Star of Gratitude)

Still ???

Whether or not there is some kind of transfer of memories/experiences going on between the brothers' past selves and present selves due to our meddling in time. We've confirmed that past angel Beelzebub has turned into a glutton in between the time we last saw him and now, but we haven't confirmed if it *is* our meddling that has induced that. Currently, no change has manifested in the present brothers, nor has the timeline of events seemed to have significantly changed.

Whether or not present Lucifer becoming more "angelic" in season 2, in lieu of past angel Lucifer's growing doubt, will be a significant plot point. The parallels are getting stronger, though. (This is elaborated on further down)

It feels like 50/50? I’ll probably keep a list like this going for future analysis/prediction posts just so I can keep track of how right/mistaken I am throughout the playthrough. Might help me make less mistakes in my analysis!

As a general rule I try not to meander too far off into symbolism or out-of-game lore because what I write begins to sound like this:

And this is an otome game that is light on writing and plot. Nine times out of ten, it’s not going to be that deep. So I work with the details given and the plot points shown and try to draw connections within the framework of the story, in an attempt to try to deduce where the devs are taking the plot. Unfortunately for me, the devs like red herrings, and red herrings are designed to mislead you. With me, they are quite successful! I’d like to get better at spotting them.

The book was consequential -- it’s used to imprison Satan later -- but that’s the end of it’s meaning. Maybe the Bible verse had something to do with it, too -- those were some weird ass numbers to just throw in the title -- but maybe not. Either way, it doesn’t really matter.

But enough of that, onwards! We have a lot of points to go over that may be interesting to note, right or not.

Satan the Memory Thief

Back in 50-B we learn that it was Michael who taught the brothers the stories behind the human world constellations.

When we’re tossed back in time-dreamland (?) again, it is Satan who takes the opportunity to teach the brothers the human world constellations. The room had just been remodeled: Michael hasn’t had the opportunity to give them tours yet. Lucifer mosied into the room so he and the brothers can get the first glimpse.

Sooo if in a future lesson we ask them about where they learned the constellations in the present timeline and they say “oh a guy named Sully, who suspiciously looked just like Satan, taught us!” then we know our meddling is having significant consequences.

It IS worth noting that unlike the prior dream sequence, Satan and Simeon remember what they just went through. This particular time-dream could very well just be an illusion meant to give Satan/Simeon some kind of emotional resolution and nothing else. This is kind of why I hate that they’re bring time travel back into the story: it makes stuff like this confusing and borderline inconsistent. Some sequences may have effects and others may not.

The chat between Lucifer and Simeon could also be consequential.

“Do you *really* mean that?”

There is a parallel at play here!

After you wake up after dozing off, you go off to find Lucifer and Simeon conversing in a forest clearing, evidently unaware that you’re eavesdropping on them. Simeon says although he knows it is just an illusion, that he was glad to see angel Lucy once more. Angel Lucy is predictably confused, and reassures Simeon that they’ll remain like this forever.

Simeon, of course, knows better. He tells Lucifer that he knows he’s been meeting with Diavolo and he’s having doubts about his place in the Celestial Realm -- and if things really will remain the same. Lucy is caught off guard, and starts to explain with some clear hesitation... and of course we pass out before we could hear his answer.

There’s creepy loud heartbeats when it fades out. Normally I associate them with tense, pivotal decisions -- but it could also just be related to us waking up and returning to reality.

If Simeon ends up being wrong -- and there will be real world consequences to this conversation -- they could be very significant consequences. We’re not sure if the conversation continues for a bit longer after we pass out, but Simeon already woke up before we come to.

Obviously the brothers still fell (they’re still demons in the present), but I wouldn’t underestimate the potential of a butterfly effect changing the circumstances of the Great Celestial War. I kind of hope they don’t do that, though, because they haven’t even begun to explain the present details of that event. We know only the broad strokes. Suddenly changing them to make the resolution between the demons and angels more smooth will feel really forced.

And that parallel I mentioned: Diavolo expresses similar worries and doubt in Lucifer’s conviction in season 2.

I have no doubt Lucifer actually means what he says to Diavolo, unlike his dialogue with Simeon, but Diavolo is aware of just how far Lucifer will go for the sake of his family -- and he’s probably #2 on the priority list, when push comes to shove. Lucifer forsaking the Celestial Realm for Lilith was the thing that brought him to Diavolo in the first place.

Of course, this lesson has Simeon suggesting that Diavolo’s influence on Lucifer was significant prior to all that unfolding, and it may have eventually happened regardless. It was only a matter of when, not how.

Still, Lucifer be writing checks he may not be able to cash. We also get this foreboding warning from Barbatos in Season 2:

As I’ve said before, the inevitable conflict the story was hinting to at this point doesn’t happen in Season 2. Lucifer isn’t forced to make a choice like this. The Night Dagger didn’t demand it.

I’ve also expressed my belief that Season 2 and Season 3 were likely written back-to-back due to the small window of time between their releases, so I believe details overlooked in Season 2 may suddenly become more relevant in Season 3.

It’s worth remembering Diavolo’s growing feelings for MC -- and Lucifer’s inner conflict about it -- were hinted at early in Season 2, as well. It doesn’t really get going until the conclusion of Season 2, leading into Season 3.

Do I have any clue of what this is actually leading up to? Not at all! If it mirrors Season 2′s format, though, it’ll suddenly come to a head in the last 3-5 lessons. I remember feeling equally clueless then, and Season 2 had a lot more foreshadowing...

... a lot of which actually didn’t pan out! But it might now.

Guardian Angels

Another smaller, but interesting detail. Guardian Angels are indeed a thing.

I think they’re gonna become a thing soon. The devs very sneakily changed a small detail in Season 2, suggesting they might have realized that it may interfere with their plans for later seasons.

Old version.

New version.

I’m thinking they may have decided giving Michael guardianship of an entire swath of the population was cheating, and they may be individualizing the role of Guardian Angels.

Which leads me to who I think Michael’s chosen human squeeze is:

My man has been scoping him out long before we came around.

It makes sense, too. We know Michael gave his Ring of Wisdom to Solomon, which seems to have kickstarted his career as a demon-pacting sorcerer (though he clearly was a sorcerer before this).

This is a very powerful item, described as the Ring of Light’s counterpart, that would be very useful for a high-ranking angel to possess. I don’t think Michael would fork it over to just anyone, particularly when we remember how he felt compelled to interrogate us via dream hi-jack before the Ring of Light fully came into our possession.

Solomon also makes Michael angst in a way a well-meaning but misbehaving child would make their parent angst:

Solomon also really doesn’t seem to regard Michael like some distant, all-powerful alien being who could smite him out of existence.

Contrast this with how he responds when he’s forced to hang out with Diavolo for a day (he gets more comfortable, but he initially wants to punt the responsibility back to Lucifer ASAP).

And he knows a surprising amount of small details about the guy:

I think Solomon is a significant part of Michael’s long-term plans, but he may not even be fully aware of how. Or he is, and they’re in some kind of mutually beneficial agreement -- possibly related to cross-realm peace -- that we simply haven’t been made aware of yet.

Personally, I think Simeon should be made MC’s ‘official’ Guardian Angel if they’re gonna be a thing with official mechanics behind them. I know Michael is supposed to be the Big Cheese and ridiculously hot, so it may make sense to have him linked to the MC of an otome game because they’re super special too, but Michael may already have Solomon. He shouldn’t get to hog everything. It’s not like assigning Simeon to do job would really inconvenience him, either: MC is Solomon’s apprentice. He can easily work with the arrangement.

Luke may feel left out but he’s a kid so...

Seven Brothers Constellation

We learn there’s a constellation representing the brothers in the Celestial Realm. Everyone there knows the legend, but Luke doesn’t know what the three stars ‘watching over them’ represent.

He, Mammon, and Satan begin to theorize and Satan suggests they may represent the three realms. The other two like the idea, and Mammon insists the ‘human’ star represents MC.

He’s probably right, but I’m willing to take it a step further: it represents MC, Diavolo, and Michael. The three “guardians” of their respective realms, and the brothers. Season 3 has been repeatedly beating us over the head with how much Michael still cares for the brothers and his relevance to their upbringing, and likely their future.

It bears repeating: Diavolo and Michael are aiming towards the same goal, though their visions of what peace and harmony looks like may be very different.

Solomon could also qualify as a self-appointed guardian, but I think he lacks the connection to the brothers MC obviously has.

Still, he has the same resolve, and he’s not leaving the story any time soon.

Predictions

I sniff out even the smallest Michael details because he’s clearly the key to whatever is gonna blow up.

This might give us some insight on how the initial dealings with him may unfold:

It’s hard to deduce just what this actually means. Either Michael tends to overthink things that just aren’t that deep (can empathize) and that in itself leads to needless complications, or he’s apt to misread situations and as a result gives poor advice. Or a combination of both.

My initial read on him makes me think that he thinks the best of humans/angels but the worst of demons. He is very, very complimentary towards MC as soon as they start answering his questions.

Am I now? Really?

It could just be the game making characters butter up the MC to make the game more enjoyable for the player of a self-insert character, but dude we just met.

When you tell him you did what you did out of love for Lucifer:

That’s a very telling pause/ellipsis. It’s like his brain momentarily short-circuits and he needs to regain his composure before he continues, and he still doesn’t sound entirely sure of what you just said lol

He also just outright admits he initially thought you must be wicked just because the brothers liked you, and this is a guy who is still fond of them himself. I think he’s having a very hard time with it.

So the inevitable bumps in the roads ahead with him will likely be a result of this, and/or his dad being an asshole. Neither he or Diavolo are actually in charge of the realms they’re overseeing -- they’re both de facto leaders -- so maybe the parents will suddenly barge in and try to knock over their sand castles for whatever reason. It is kind of weird that the exchange program has been agreed to in the first place, particularly on the Celestial Realm’s part.

Regardless, I have no clue what the next arc will be. I know we still have three trials left, but they could combine two again to leave more room for the actual storyline to progress. The climax is going to be the last trial of our sorcerer’s exam, or something happening afterwards. Not sure which one I’m willing to bet on yet: I remember Simeon’s play and the silly Blood Moon contest in Season 2 were what kept use preoccupied for Season 2 until SUDDENLY LUCIFER GETS AMNESIA AND THE WORLD IS IN DANGER AND WE HAVE TO STAB HIM TO SAVE EVERYONE. But they did heavily foreshadow that in the very beginning lol. They just didn’t fill in the blanks until much later.

I wonder what the trial of chastity is gonna be like and how hard we’ll actually fail and the game will need to overcompensate for that

#obey me #obey me!#obey me lesson 52 #obey me spoilers #obey me lucifer #obey me diavolo #obey me solomon #obey me simeon #obey me michael #obey me barbatos #analysis #obey me lesson 53 #obey me season 3

91 notes · View notes

alatismeni-theitsa · 3 years

Note

Hi! Hope you're doing well <3 I been reading some of your posts about LO and Greek culture in general! And as a non-greek I think your culture is amazing and it should be respected as any other culture, so, I had this question a little while ago

I made a couple of characters based on greek myth creatures, and I kinda had a story for them in an ancient greek inspired world (highly inspired tbh, I think it might take place in an ancient greek ambience as well), but now I think that might be insensitive (?) I don't know how to express it, but I just want to know, would it be ok if I continue with that idea or should I scratch it?

TIIIME TO FINALLY ANSWER THIS

I am really sorry for the long wait! I was trying to think how to answer this properly and also mustering the energy for it xD I will pin it so you can find it more easily, if you come back to the blog.

For starters, you can write whatever you wish. I am hesitant to say to people “you can't write this and that” because it might make people feel estranged and uncomfortable and I believe that distance serves no real purpose. Yes, it’s likely that a xenos won’t be making the story VERY culturally accurate but if the story is 30% culturally accurate as opposed to barely 5% which we see in the popular media today, then it’s still a win. Not to mention that Greeks themselves are not 100% culturally accurate most of the time in their Greek mythology stories. This happens because 1) Americanization has hit us hard 2) They write them just for fun without bothering to research much. We are also lucky if we have a 30% accuracy in our texts most of the time.

(I love percentages if you can’t tell 😂)

You might have figured out I have the tag #writing (and perhaps also #writing advice ??) where I answer these type of questions, so visiting it might help! I'm not gonna tell you if you can write it or not - you can write whatever you like - but I would advise you to treat the Greek culture like any other real or fictional culture. Do a proper “worldbuilding”, let’s say.

THE CREATURES

As you know, some are more serious and some are more playful. They don’t easily “switch” from their behaviors so it’s best to keep a serious creature serious and a playful creature playful throughout most of the story. Some reading is needed, to figure out how the ancient Greeks saw those creatures. Because assumptions are usually not helpful. If we have no clues about their behavior, that’s free real estate I guess 😂

Now, if you are going for the “almost like Greek culture but not quite” thing, that still needs similar studying. You need to know where you are basing those creatures and how they see their world - or how the world sees them. And what elements make sense to change.

You can still not base the characters nowhere and just have a gal with snakes in her head. You can do that xD However, if you like to be more in touch with the culture you need to use some context and the “ambience” you talked about. It’s another thing to say “this gal has snakes on her head“ and another to say “this is THE Medusa“.

Some Greek culture needs to shine through. I mean, it would be great if it could shine though in general, so your references and basis to Greek mythology are better. It would be safe to assume the ancient folklore creatures have some Greek culture in them since they have Greek names, they have been written in Greek stories behaving according to the Greek societal rules and ethics, and generally being symbols in Greece until our days. And your story is about Greek mythology, so you want to emphasize the Greek aspects of your heroes and world.

THE ANCIENT GREEK INSPIRED WORLD

I don't know what research you’ve done so far but I will begin from the basics anyways. Ancient Greek ambience, as you can probably guess, is not “chitons, wine, vines and white pillars” 😂 The ambience specifically doesn’t come from the aesthetics but from the feel of it - the food, the customs, the symbols, the dances, the language interjections, the behaviors and values. Parts of the culture are also how is reverence and modesty are expressed, what makes someone present “manly“ or “feminine”. So, it’s gonna take some research.

People usually write some of the aesthetic and think they are covered, even though their worldbuilding is bad, precisely because they have only presented the very top of the iceberg. No food, no dances, no certain behaviors, nothing. You could say they are “soulless Disney remakes”. 😂 You can also do that, but you need to know how it will come out. It might be quite bland and, if I am not mistaken, you said you want to avoid that. (And I think most of Greeks would tell you that they don’t mind a Greek “soulless” remake but it would be super extra great if you put cultural elements in).

Ok, I don’t mean make it like an encyclopedia, but presenting some stuff from the culture is how you get the ambience. You might as well take a writing advice list for worlbuilding stuff you must have and see which ones you can find irl from the Greek culture.

Important! Remember that nearby cultures affect each other, so if you change one element from the Greek culture it’s likely it has to be changed in other cultures next to your area. If wearing green makes you manly in Imaginary Greece, it will also make you manly in Imaginary Turkey and Imaginary Bulgaria, let’s say. (there is no “ancient Turkey” or “ancient Bulgaria” as countries - and depending on the era, “ancient Greece” is also not a thing - but you get my point xD)

For the interpersonal relationships/interactions, you can read some ancient translated texts presenting daily life situations of the ancient Greeks (start from Googling stuff, I really don’t have sources for that xD). It’s very likely that the ancient sources won’t give you a very defined feel (try it anyways, if you like). Therefore, I suggest you see interactions of modern Greek people.

Worry not! YouTube - through me xD - has you covered! Searching the tags #greek tv #greek youtuber #greek podcast and #video. On youtube you can even find vlogs of people visiting Greece and see interactions with the locals. (If you have trouble finding them, you can send me another ask).

Similarly, it might take months to find all the Greek language interjections so you can go for modern ones. Besides, many interjections like “popoo“ are ancient. Besides, if you are not making a very “serious” story, the modern touches might help it feel more in touch with the present.

Surely, people are people everywhere and humans between countries share cultural traits, but there are some slightly more predominant stuff depending on the culture. Cultures close to each other share more traits, so, if you can’t find any Greeks around, you might be able to find our neighbors. Middle Eastern, north African, or south European people (and Hispanic/Latino Americans!) around might help to understand the dynamics between friends and family members. If you already belong to some of those cultures, congrats, you have most of the formula figured out!

I gave so much space to the interpersonal relationships because that’s gonna give you an idea where the line of “respect” is. Surely, the ancient interpersonal relationships won’t be like the modern American ones 😂 There is no way a student goes to Chiron being like “hey, man, how you doin?” Knowing how Greek teachers were, as late as the 20th century, that’s gonna earn him a slap 😂

Another thing: saying “Good morning” and “good afternoon / goodnight” when you first and last see people in the day is VERY important and the best social practice! You won’t be considered rude if you don’t say them but in a slightly formal and especially professional environment, better use them. (Other modern Europeans also consider this a good practice.)

The most ancient greeting of Greeks is “be happy” (χάιρε / χαίρετε) but health is also very important and is another old greeting. Xάιρετε is more formal in our days and Γεια/Γεια σας ("have good health”) is the most used formal and informal one. Seeing how people wish health in the middle east, it might be that the Health thing has been here for centuries. Also, if you break something or something bad happens to you, we say “health” because having your health is more important than anything else.

Fun fact, “Charon“ (Χάρων) probably means “the happy one” :P It has the same root with (χάιρε / χαίρετε).

Many other social cues can be found in the tags I mentioned, but you can send me an ask if you need to know something more specific!

As for the food, you can find ancient recipes and even use modern ones (which are usually with the same ingredients). Same goes for dances and symbols. You can google stuff about them, go on Google Scholar and search there, as well. (Also, google pages where you can download those papers for free ;) ) Please do some cross examination to make sure that this element indeed exists and it’s not just one person pulling it our of their a**. 😂

If you can’t find info, you can lean on modern symbols and dances. The dances are similar through the centuries anyways. No one is going to come for you if you say you based an element on a modern Greek thing bc the ancient one was impossible to find with the resources available to you.

I don’t have many more things to add on these cultural elements because I already have tags for the modern ones. #greek cuisine #melomakarona #greek dance #greek custom #greek tradition etc.

And, last but not least, research the weather!! I can't stress this enough 😩 We are not a desert and we are not the Tropics. If your weather is similar to the Greek one, then your creatures most likely will need some serious covering in Autumn and Winter 😂

All in all, it’s certainly not a piece of cake to write about other countries and cultures but, if they are open to let you in, you can learn stuff and do your best depicting them. It might not be perfect (and no work is actually perfect) but it would be a step to the right direction and might encourage more writers to do the same - instead of throwing some chitons in and calling it a day xD

If you have any other questions feel free to send me another message (dm or ask). You - or anyone else - REALLY WON’T BOTHER ME if you ask me many questions on my DMs or here.

#writing #answered #retelling #greek myhtology #excuse my tags i am just making this post easier to find #writing advice

28 notes · View notes