#great meltdown of 2023

[ennobaka]

Why is parental love like that. I love you and worry about you in a way that will hurt you the most. I want you to thrive why aren't you conforming to society standards. Why are you hurting me by not being normal. I love you

[hachinohachi]

when you don't want to be hyperindependent anymore but there is no other viable option

[38sr]

I know this is gonna be a strange one, but I do have an industry question;

I've been looking for a job for the last 4 years post-grad, I've tried every bit of advice I've gotten over my 6 years in school and 4 years out. Is it too late for me?? Or more so what advice would you have at this point?? I'm starting to feel really negatively about this venture, and getting a day job has been just as difficult;;

Hello Sky! Hope it's okay to call you that. Ah post-grad job hunting.....I don't miss that period of my life at all. Before I begin, just want to preface that what I say going forward is strictly from my perspective/experience. I am not the absolute of the animation industry so if what I say doesn't align with you, you do not have to follow it haha. Alright, advice for post grad job hunting.... Well, I think I want to start off giving a bit of context for the animation landscape these past 4 years that has been rough for everyone (trust me it'll come back around to your question): 1.) COVID Pandemic

This one might be a confusing for some people because when COVID hit in 2020, the only facet of entertainment that was able to keep going was animation. If you remember, during this time streaming numbers went up because people were stuck at home, every studio was launching their own streaming platform (HBO Max, Disney+, Peacock, etc.) and celebrities were given animated shows because live-action had stopped dead in its tracks. This period allowed artists outside of California state to get hired because what's the point of capping the talent to the local area when we're already working remotely? In short, it was a boom. But an exponential boom rather than a gradual boom. You never wanna grow too fast because you'll crash out quicker (and harder) which leads us to our second factor.... 2.) Netflix's first ever round of layoffs in summer 2022, streaming actually isn't profitable?????

In short, this year is when Netflix's growth finally stopped and was the beginning of The Great Animation Contraction. Other studios who were looking to Netflix as a the new model of distributing/creating entertainment had realized Netflix wasn't invincible. As well as their business model. So naturally, they got scared and and take action (aka layoffs). I was affected by these layoffs while working at Marvel Studios and many artists got laid off at studios to save face from the mistake that was streaming (though at this point studios were still double downing on it). Also, around this time live-action was slowly restarting thanks to vaccines and social distancing protocols. So those celebrity studded animated productions dwindled down (and also they caused so much havoc for us animation workers because most of those celebrities had no animation production experience). Which now leads us to...

3.) Mergers everywhere! Yeah, uh, mergers fucking suck. People kept losing their jobs because companies kept absorbing into each other and multiplying their debts to ungodly dollars amounts! Apparently no one took a math class and understood if you multiply any number by zero you will always get a zero. These merger also caused more shows to get shelved and canned, making the job market even slimmer. And by then we get to 2023 and the....

4.) WGA, SAG and TAG Contract Negotiations By now, studios have realized that streaming is losing them money because it costs a butt load of money to not only create a streaming site, but also maintain it, update it, create new media for it, acquire established franchises for it, and maintain the current library. Streaming shows aren't being advertised like they used to on cable so shows don't last beyond one or two seasons. Worker contracts are becoming shorter and shorter (I had a co-worker who had a 3 month contract! Isn't that insane?). And what happens in the midst of this streaming meltdown?

WGA, SAG and TAG are gearing up for their contract negotiations. And as we know SAG (actors) and WGA (writers) did strike which good for them! But now there are no live-action jobs and once again, animation (TAG) is the only one running because our negotiations don't officially start until 2024. At this point, so many animated productions have been cancelled left and right for the sake of "saving money and cutting costs". And the effects were very much being felt in the animation work force. Some animation workers were starting to leave the state of California to more affordable cities, some getting day jobs as baristas, hell some leaving the industry all together. It didn't help that studios were kind of withholding production greenlights 'cause 1) they're greedy corporations 2) these strikes were putting pressure on them. And when we did enter 2024 for our contract negotiations, that contraction was at the tightest. The job market for animation had become so bone dry that you have director-level talent taking entry level jobs to stay afloat. But because of that new, emerging artists are blocked out from breaking in. Anytime a job listing would go up people would go in a frenzy and try every thing they could to get the job. That's how little shows were in production this year specifically. Of course, by now it is public that TAG has ratified the contract (meaning we will not strike). But up until then, studios were quite literally waiting with baited breath for the duration of negotiations. A ton of stuff was in development but nothing was getting a greenlight in fear of a strike. So many animation workers at this point have been laid off for at least 2 years, got priced out of LA county, or got so burned by the industry that they left for a more sustainable paycheck. At this point of the post you're probably thinking, "Why is she talking about all of this and not answering my question?"

And the reason for that is because I what to highlight you didn't miss your chance. You unfortunately graduated at a time where the circumstances were not good for breaking in for the past 4 years.

I'm not saying this to deter you from animation either. I just want to be transparent and honest about the current state of animation because it really has been bleak for the past 4 years. So it's not your fault but rather the industry was just in a seriously bad drought. Both emerging and veteran artists have been struggling to find work and when they do it didn't even last for 6 months. Hopefully, with the renewed contract studios will start greenlighting productions again so everyone isn't fighting for one job opening. But I can't tell 'cause I am not Raven Baxter haha. But what advice can I give during this tough time? Start developing your own projects. Things may be pretty dry right now but now is the time when you can create and develop your own original stuff that can be used in your portfolio. Short or long form, showing progress videos, just create. Because once you start working it's gonna be hard to find that personal project time (trust me I'm going through that right now haha). Also, you'd be surprised how just doing your own thing can garner the attention of someone who does have the power to hire you. How do you think I got to work on the shows I have in the animation industry? Almost all of my jobs happened because I was just creating my own thing and it just happened to match the sensibilities of a show produced by a Hollywood studio. And if I had any additional advice... it would probably be don't think that Hollywood is the only way you can tell your stories.

This one is more of....a recent revelation I've had after going through a pretty bad work experience but Hollywood isn't the only way you can be a storyteller. Whether it's comics, games, streaming, animation, or film....the Hollywood system isn't the end all be all. And by Hollywood system I'm referring to breaking into a big studio like Disney, Nick or something and trying to get your own movie/tv show to win an award or something. That system often works for a certain group of people and fails other groups. That's why I say develop and create your own thing because you might find something that fits your creative voice more than Disney or any other Hollywood studio. Maybe that's inconsiderate of me to say as someone who's been incredibly lucky to work in the animation industry for almost 8 years now....but I still wanna be honest that there are other avenues that isn't the Hollywood way. All in all, please don't give up or beat yourself up. The current state of animation within America was out your control and resulted in many artists struggling to find a job. You aren't too late. In fact, I would say now is your time to do your thing in preparation for when that hiring boom comes again (or you can just take another route to tell your stories). I hope that answered your question!

[jovial-thunder]

Pre-alpha Lancer Tactics changelog

(cross-posting the full gif changelog here because folks seemed to like it last time I did)

We're aiming for getting the first public alpha for backers by the end of this month! Carpenter and I scoped out mechanics that can wait until after the alpha (e.g. grappling, hiding) in favor of tying up the hundred loose threads that are needed for something that approaches a playable game. So this is mostly a big ol changelog of an update from doing that.

But I also gave a talent talk at a local Portland Indie Game Squad event about engine architecture! It'll sound familiar if you've been reading these updates; I laid out the basic idea for this talk almost a year ago, back in the June 2023 update.

We've also signed contracts & had a kickoff meeting with our writers to start on the campaigns. While I've enjoyed like a year of engine-work, it'll be so so nice to start getting to tell stories. Data structures don't mean anything beyond how they affect humans & other life.

New Content

Implemented flying as a status; unit counts as +3 spaces above the current ground level and ignores terrain and elevation extra movement costs. Added hover + takeoff/land animations.

Gave deployables the ability to have 3D meshes instead of 2D sprites; we'll probably use this mostly when the deployable in question is climbable.

Related, I fixed a bug where after terrain destruction, all units recheck the ground height under them so they'll move down if the ground is shot out from under them. When the Jerichos do that, they say "oh heck, the ground is taller! I better move up to stand on it!" — not realizing that the taller ground they're seeing came from themselves.

Fixed by locking some units' rendering to the ground level; this means no stacking climbable things, which is a call I'm comfortable making. We ain't making minecraft here (I whisper to myself, gazing at the bottom of my tea mug). 

Block sizes are currently 1x1x0.5 — half as tall as they are wide. Since that was a size I pulled out of nowhere for convenience, we did some art tests for different block heights and camera angles. TLDR that size works great and we're leaving it.

Added Cone AOE pattern, courtesy of an algorithm NMcCoy sent me that guarantees the correct number of tiles are picked at the correct distance from the origin.

pick your aim angle

for each distance step N of your cone, make a list ("ring") of all the cells at that distance from your origin

sort those cells by angular distance from your aim angle, and include the N closest cells in that ring in the cone's area

Here's a gif they made of it in Bitsy:

Units face where you're planning on moving/targeting them.

Got Walking Armory's Shock option working. Added subtle (too subtle, now that I look at it) electricity effect.

Other things we've added but I don't have gifs for or failed to upload. You'll have to trust me. :)

disengage action

overcharge action

Improved Armament core bonus

basic mine explosion fx

explosion fx on character dying

Increase map elevation cap to 10. It's nice but definitely is risky with increasing the voxel space, gonna have to keep an eye on performance.

Added Structured + Stress event and the associated popups. Also added meltdown status (and hidden countdown), but there's not animation for this yet so your guy just abruptly disappears and leaves huge crater.

UI Improvements

Rearranged the portrait maker. Auto-expand the color picker so you don't have to keep clicking into a submenu.

Added topdown camera mode by pressing R for handling getting mechs out of tight spaces.

The action tooltips have been bothering me for a while; they extend up and cover prime play-area real estate in the center of the screen. So I redesigned them to be shorter and have a max height by putting long descriptions in a scrollable box. This sounds simple, but the redesign, pulling in all the correct data for the tags, and wiring up the tooltips took like seven hours. Game dev is hard, yo.

Put the unit inspect popups in lockable tooltips + added a bunch of tooltips to them.

Implemented the rest of Carpenter's cool hex-y action and end turn readout. I'm a big fan of whenever we can make the game look more like a game and less like a website (though he balances out my impulse for that for the sake of legibility).

Added a JANKY talent/frame picker. I swear we have designs for a better one, but sometimes you gotta just get it working. Also seen briefly here are basic level up/down and HASE buttons.

Other no-picture things:

Negated the map-scaling effect that happens when the window resizes to prevent bad pixel scaling of mechs at different resolutions; making the window bigger now just lets you see more play area instead of making things bigger.

WIP Objectives Bullets panel to give the current sitrep info

Wired up a buncha tooltips throughout the character sheet.

Under the Hood

Serialization: can save/load games! This is the payoff for sticking with that engine architecture I've been going on about. I had to add a serialization function to everything in the center layer which took a while, but it was fairly straightforward work with few curveballs.

Finished replacement of the kit/unit/reinforcement group/sitrep pickers with a new standardized system that can pull from stock data and user-saved data.

Updated to Godot 4.2.2; the game (and editor) has been crashing on exit for a LONG time and for the life of me I couldn't track down why, but this minor update in Godot completely fixed the bug. I still have no idea what was happening, but it's so cool to be working in an engine that's this active bugfixing-wise! 

Other Bugfixes

Pulled straight from the internal changelog, no edits for public parseability:

calculate cover for fliers correctly

no overwatch when outside of vertical threat

fixed skirmisher triggering for each attack in an AOE

fixed jumpjets boost-available detection

fixed mines not triggering when you step right on top of them // at a different elevation but still adjacent

weapon mods not a valid target for destruction

made camera pan less jumpy and adjust to the terrain height

better Buff name/desc localization

Fixed compcon planner letting you both boost and attack with one quick action.

Fix displayed movement points not updating

Prevent wrecks from going prone

fix berserkers not moving if they were exactly one tile away

hex mine uses deployer's save target instead of 0

restrict weapon mod selection if you don't have the SP to pay

fix deployable previews not going away

fix impaired not showing up in the unit inspector (its status code is 0 so there was a check that was like "looks like there's no status here")

fix skirmisher letting you move to a tile that should cost two movement if it's only one space away

fix hit percent calculation

fix rangefinder grid shader corner issues (this was like a full day to rewrite the shader to be better)

Teleporting costs the max(spaces traveled, elevation change) instead of always 1

So um, yeah, that's my talk, any questions? (I had a professor once tell us to never end a talk like this, so now of course it's the phrase that first comes to mind whenever I end a talk)

[marshmallowgoop]

2024 AMV Review

[2022] [2023]

2024 felt like a huge video editing year for me. It was characterized by three major developments:

Submitting to contests

Editing MMVs (Manga Music Videos)

Participating in timed challenges

For contests, I maybe really threw myself into the con contest scene (that is, for AMV contests that take place at conventions) after sparking a heated discussion about submitting personally captioned videos for the sake of better accessibility. An initially stressful situation ultimately became one of overwhelming support, and I've since become more involved with this part of the AMV community, which has been so kind, encouraging, and inspirational. I'm certain I wouldn't have made the strides in my editing that I feel like I made in 2024 had it not been for the community.

In fact, the last two developments on my list are purely because of the community. It was the community who pushed me into making MMVs; after signing up for an MMV exchange (check out the video Violet Skies gifted me here!), I practiced MMV-like skills with an AMV/MMV ("No Choir") and also made my first full-blown MMV in DaVinci Resolve ("15 Min Flame"), which involved thinking in a more motion graphics way and utilizing my program's 3D camera, something that maybe looks a little wild (but is sincerely less complicated than it seems!):

Incorporating more motion graphics and manga panels into my work then became almost "standard" for me. Four of the six AMVs I made for Project Org Editor (POE)—of which none are unfortunately in this reel because they remain unfinished, but you can check out a preview here—utilized a fair amount of manga as well.

And that brings me to my last development: participating in timed challenges. POE is a biennial video-editing tournament with six preliminary rounds in which participants have one week to edit a video to a theme. I took part in every round (always with a Detective Conan video because I think I'm hilarious), but it was actually my second timed challenge in the year. The first was SLICE (Short Little Iron Chef Edits), wherein participants had about four days (100 hours) to create a video set to a song from a list of songs only revealed at the start of the challenge. "If You Kill Me" was my entry, and I finished it pretty much to my satisfaction by the end of the 100 hours, so I thought I would do even better with POE.

But POE was extremely hard on me. I finished nothing, never scored above mediocre, and had a meltdown after Round 2, where I must have cried all day after submitting an entry that I hated (and won't be revising). It was my most difficult video editing experience thus far—emotionally and physically, as I sacrificed sleep to edit and wound up sick by Round 6. I really wanted to stand out and impress, but... I wasn't there yet.

And that probably describes my feelings about my AMVs in 2024 better than anything else: not there yet. There's been a lot of growth in my skills, in my eyes; there's the aforementioned MMV experience, where I practiced 3D camerawork as well as manga animation for the first time, but I've also made longer videos, utilized "Twixtor" effects ("Feel About You"), learned how to make my own VHS tapes for the ultimate VHS aesthetic ("Eyelash"), and continued to work on my pacing and compositions (even if I still have a long way to go with the pacing and even intentionally made it "worse" as an experiment once). Videos from 2022 and 2023 that I used to be so proud of almost became painful, and I'm overall much happier with everything I made in 2024.

But whenever I'd make finals in a contest—which happened at seven cons (green text in the video, with yellow being when I didn't make finals but still had a video exhibited, which happened at six cons)!—I knew I had no chance of winning a category, and I have yet to. Because I'm not there yet. I'm satisfied with most of my videos from 2024, but they don't feel special enough. Good, maybe, but not great. For POE and Anime Frontier, where I entered nothing but Detective Conan videos, I captured attention for my dedication to the franchise, but the AMVs themselves still feel lacking.

In thinking about 2025, I've been thinking about what it means to be there. I've been thinking about how to measure growth, as measuring the times I make finals, or my note counts, or YouTube likes, or even scores I get in tournaments like POE, don't seem to be healthy ways of defining development (especially when what makes finals at cons might not really correlate with what's most beloved online, with "If You Kill Me" being my most successful con video of 2024 but "Nosedive," which never made finals once, being my most successful video on the web). Conversations with others (thank you!) have provided a wealth of wonderful suggestions for considering growth: trying new things, doing easily what used to be difficult, finding joy in your work.

And in 2024, I do think I made progress in all those things! But being there goes back to my question of what is good art?, and, well, I think I'll need to continue working on defining what that means to me.

Still, my major goal for 2025, at this time, is to be less hard on myself. As my videos have become longer and more elaborate, they've taken more time to complete, with each AMV in this reel (excepting maybe one) representing at least 30 hours of work, with many being 50+-hour efforts. That's a fair chunk of time, but I still beat myself up for "not doing enough" or "not completing enough videos," which isn't fair to me.

It's regrettably not something I did for 2023, but my year-end DaVinci Resolve hour count for 2024 (counting time from when I first got this computer in late August 2023) is 1,107 hours!

The earliest total-hour screenshot I can find is 666 hours in July 2024, so this means I spent, at the very, very minimum, over 441 hours in Resolve in 2024. And dedicating that many hours to improving my craft isn't nothing!

In the end, I am sad that there are only 12 videos in this reel when I at least started brainstorming and drafting for 9 more. But all the improvements I made, all the ways I challenged myself, all the seeing things like this at cons, in person, on the big screen... that's worth celebrating.

Thank you so much to everyone who has supported me so far. I hope to post even "better" videos in 2025—ones that are there!

[dailyniallnews]

Niall Horan | Live at Wembley Arena, London

Six long years after his last tour, Niall Horan returns with The Show: Live on Tour and what a spectacle it is.

When Niall Horan released his debut single “This Town” in 2016, fans and critics alike praised his nuanced storytelling and ability to capture his audience with just a strum of a guitar and a gentle croon. Almost a decade since that release, Horan’s artistry hasn’t faltered — he’s gone from strength to strength, crafting a body of work that is both nostalgic and timeless. Now, with his The Show: Live on Tour, named after his acclaimed 2023 album, he’s reminding all of us just how much he is a showman at heart.

Horan played to a completely packed Wembley Arena last week with many camping out hours to secure a spot on the floor. It’s the same feverish, infectious energy that first began over 14 years ago which, much to Horan’s dismay, hasn’t waned at all. Although it’s difficult to untether Horan from his days in One Direction, he spends moments of the show reflecting on the “14 years of memories” he created in and around the arena and London. The Show: Live on Tour began in Belfast a few weeks back. The first show, he ended it with the words, “This is going to be the best year yet.” Just a handful of days later, he is clearly still revelling in the feeling of being back on stage.

Like the ’70s greats before him, Horan is meant to be heard live. Horan thrives and excels when he’s performing and is a true artist’s artist — not just writing songs, but crafting entire worlds around them. “Nice To Meet Ya” might’ve been an obvious choice for an opening song, but with the context that Horan hasn’t toured since 2018 and wasn’t able to perform his incredible sophomore album, Heartbreak Weather, to audiences due to the pandemic. If the album The Show orbits around who Horan is today as a person, a musician, and a songwriter, the tour is, in a way, serving as a reintroduction to who he is as a performer.

The Show: Live on Tour production sees his six-piece band stand atop varying stages, a nod to the old-school variety show performances. Curtains fall and fold together with images projected — sometimes it’s a billboard that reads THE SHOW, other times it’s a moon soaring through the night sky. It’s the little nods to the world of The Show that make it a spectacle.

When a mirrorball drops — a sign that means Horan is about to play a song from his boyband days — fans erupt into screams. Quickly after, the chords of “Stockholm Syndrome” begin to play and new and old fans alike come together to sing. Horan lets us into his mind for a moment, affectionately saying, “I do this for a living,” which he was reflecting upon during the show.

Horan has a knack for making a 12,000+ arena feel as intimate as a 200-cap venue, using songs like “This Town,” “Flicker,” and the delicate ballad “You Could Start a Cult,” a clear fan favourite, to showcase that further. Every quiet, sombre moment is completely contrasted with a stadium-sized roar from fans responding to Horan’s every childlike smirk and high note. Bringing out Canadian singer/songwriter Shawn Mendes for a duet of his hit “Treat You Better,” and one of his first live performances in years, speaks to Horan’s love towards his fellow singer/songwriters.

Teetering between the hits — think “Slow Hands,” “Meltdown” and “Heartbreak Weather” — and the fan faves like “Everywhere,” “Save My Life” and “Mirrors,” Horan keeps the energy high throughout the entire show — a feat for solo acts. Although the setlist was constructed to have a bit of everything, when scrolling Twitter after the gig I read a tweet which talks about how he made the setlist for die-hard fans. It’s true — it’s a collection of songs that demonstrate his growth and grit as an artist, but also were clearly selected with his fans at the forefront of his mind.

As the show comes to a close, Horan’s penultimate song is “Save My Life.” Horan knows the true meaning it holds, but for fans, it speaks to the beauty of a fan and artist relationship and how the latter’s music shapes the former’s lives. Throughout the show, seeing fans holding up fan projects and crying to various songs is a moving thing for Horan to witness. 14 years on and he’s still in awe of the magic he’s been able to make through his work.

For fans who have yet to see Horan live on this tour, he describes it best in The Show‘s title track: Hold tight, get ready for the ride.

Words Kelsey Barnes

[tunedtostatic]

Blog updates 2024 edition, or more specifically, one big, potentially very good update: Last year when I did my 2023 blog updates, almost but not quite a year ago now, I said I might be within a month or so of things no longer being in serious crisis/my life being basically okay-adjacent. It is hard to write this even now but it turned out that that didn't work out - things did get better, especially for a chunk of six months in the middle of the year when I had safe housing and things felt wonderful compared to the last few years, but neither external circumstances nor my own ability to deal with {PTSD, external circumstances, &c} got to the point hoped for where I would be able to say "I'm living a life where things are more or less normal and okay." Even though I never quite reached things being okay-adjacent during that chunk of months and things got not great again end of summer to now, having that time of things being close to almost okay-adjacent was a very important springboard to me for make it to a point now where I might be within reach of actually okay-adjacent.

Right now, what I said last year about potentially being within a month or so of things being basically okay is potentially true again, and I think I have a better shot at it this time for both external reasons and personal "knowing more about what to do to get safe and having my shit together" reasons. I might be within reach of things being okay-adjacent and feeling like I have a real normal life outside of crises (here defined as safe housing, employment, no people hurting me in my immediate vicinity, financial and scheduling ability to manage physical medical issues on a day to day basis while still eating without mental health issues getting in the way of that, clothing in drawers not trash bags, nothing actively medically scary).

If so this will be for the first time since 2018 so of course it's a big deal to me. Right now of course I'm both excited and relieved things might work out soon and terrified that they won't.

Meanwhile (the reason beyond updating that I'm posting this!), as I get ready to fully move into the place that will hopefully be the "safe housing" part of this, it's been really hitting me that even though living a life that is normal-adjacent and okay-adjacent will inherently be orders of magnitude better than the last 5+ years and of course I'm prepared to be extremely grateful for that, I'm still going to have all the grief and emptiness I have now. Even though I will as always be (too) busy in some ways trying to get everything done in a day while dealing with chronic pain, no longer having so much time soaked up trying to survive whatever the problem of the week or PTSD meltdown of the day is means that I'm going to have hours and hours of empty time to fill every week.

When I talk about loss I know some people's minds will jump to the worst case personal scenarios so I will clarify that I am fortunate that by grief I don't mean the death of an immediate family member, not that kind of grief. A lot of different things - people who have been awful, deaths, horribleness in my neighborhood that was like family, lost time, and all the losses prior to the last few years in some ways since grief doesn't fully go away, and then things like a close friendship breakup last year that is not as painful as any of the above since we are both alive and managed to be kind to each other throughout the breakup but it's still over. It has been hitting me that a lot of the work of grieving everything from the past couple decades, like the work of dealing with PTSD, is what I had to get through these past couple years to have a chance of getting my shit together, but now that I've made enough headway on the work of grieving to be able to have a chance at my life being okay, the losses and emptiness themselves will still be there ("still be gone"?)

If anyone has suggestions for fun stuff to do, book and movie recommendations, &c, it would be a really good time for them! If anyone can recommend social stuff, e.g. friendly good-boundary-having discord servers, that would be amazing. I think y'all know my favorite things in fiction and music (fiddles, writing fanfic that comes to a screeching halt 2-3 times a chapter to talk about food, thoughtful meditations on torture?, swords) but I'm usually down to at least give media outside my wheelhouse a try.

[lovesby]

untitled (thinly veiled rant), sby, march 2023

MAYBE i do fucking deserve to have a publicly broadcasted CNN mental breakdown • i mean a total fucking classic traditional meltdown on national television • call MSNBC call fox news i dont care someone get me on the air i want all of america to see me rip out all my hair and open my rib cage bone by bone the cartilage coming apart easily and • let the black shriveled up heart in my chest pathetically flop out like a tired sigh under my breath that i wouldnt elaborate on if i was even prompted to and  my lungs will pop from my fucking screaming and  my throat will be red and raw and bloody and • they'll recap it on NPR the next morning for all five people that still listen to AM radio on their commute and the BBC and the international circuit will have a field day with the clips. 

“american girl possessed on live prime time last night! great ratings honestly!”

and     it wont even matter who i am or what i feel because i’ll be american girl possessed on prime time 10/9 central ben shapiro or joe rogan or some other dipshit will make a point about the libs or something on their podcast and they'll make a tiktok audio that trends for three days from my dying breath and people will hit not interested and maybe it won't really do shit to change the algorithm feeding feeding feeding • and • they'll paint me over with a millenial gray paint they got from the home depot or lowe's.

ill be in the damn morgue so who even cares really because im dead so what do i have a say in it all and all that will be left of me are the people who i wasn't brave enough talk to because its my problem that i have problems apparently and  

they'll know all about the quote unquote real version of american girl from the nightly news and • what will be left of me is the she was so young and tears and whatnot not to put too fine a point on it but i won't even have the terrible terrible burden of wanting to know what they have to say anymore. 

it's passive. no plans.

[ennobaka]

Hmm I've been debating whether or not to order some fabric and sew a light jacket/haori and like, what do I have to lose

[hachinohachi]

Oscillating between 'i don't think i have suicidal obsession ocd it's just regular old depression' and 'me wondering whether i have suicidal obsession ocd is the compulsive part of ocd actually'

[sipswithtea]

My therapist told me to start blogging

I semi recently got a new therapist. I’ve always had issues keeping therapists because I never feel comfortable enough to be honest with them. I always end up pretending I have nothing to talk about or can’t think of anything going on. It’s so much easier than having to get into all the bullshit.

So why did I go back? Well I’d have to go back to last year, when I had the fun task of having to find a new psychiatrist because I aged out of my parent’s insurance. I started the appointment the way I do with any new psychiatrist: I got straight to the point. I let her know I have bipolar and BPD, diagnosed since 2016. She tells me she’s not convinced. Mind you, this ends up being one of the longest psychiatrist appointments I’ve ever had. Those things are like 30 minutes MAX, this one was well over an hour. Being diagnosed by multiple other doctors was not convincing her. She told me she’s thinks I’m just depressed and suffered a lot of trauma, and that I need therapy.

She told me that in August 2023. I took the bait. Since I was diagnosed in 2016 I’ve had a love/hate relationship with therapy. I think I try to Pavlov myself into believing it works. But nonetheless, I decided maybe she was right. I had just gotten insurance through my job and I was finally gonna be able to see my *favorite* therapist that I had years ago before I had an insurance change. I ended up booking a session with her as soon as my insurance came through.

When I say favorite, looking back now it was definitely a Pavlov moment. She was one of my first therapists, from when I was 18-19. She probably was a really great therapist for my teenage self, because I was so detached from reality. I wasn’t nearly as self aware as I am at 26. So once again, it didn’t last very long.

I tend to talk about very superficial topics during therapy to avoid any further discussions. It’s much easier to talk about how annoyed I was at a situation than the fact that I had a meltdown down and bashed my head into a wall over it. I also hate the obvious “your childhood is the reason you’re the way you are” undertones of therapy. Like no shit. But there’s nothing to be done about it but move on. No I’m not gonna write my parents a letter. No I’m not gonna relive traumatic events in order to somehow finally move on. It all sounds like actual nonsense.

So I stopped seeing my *fave* after 3 months. I figured I’ll just stay on my meds and try to keep doing what I always do. I stayed with the psychiatrist for a few more months too. She ended up putting me on meds that I was on back in 2017. I told her that back when I was on this specific medication I experienced a lot of seizure activity. She told me since it was such a long time ago I’m probably remembering wrong. (Literally don’t know why I kept seeing her as long as I did I’m sorry) Long story short I ended up having seizure activity once again while on this medication.

That ended up being my last straw. This wasn’t just a small bump in the road. I was out of work for 8 weeks straight because I was having so many seizures. I couldn’t even stop taking the medication cold turkey because that would cause more seizures.

After I was fully weaned off of the medication I decided to find a new psychiatrist. I really tried to do my research this time so I wouldn’t end up in a similar situation. The only issue was I would have to wait almost 2 months to get an appointment.

Having both bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder, navigating through life unmedicated is just about impossible. I know I tried. But life doesn’t pause itself no matter what’s going on. And that’s exactly what happened. Life continued. I was out of work. I suffered a loss in the family. It was all so much.

So I caved. I went back online to look for a new therapist. This was during one of my manic episodes, so I had the energy and motivation. I read through every therapist’s bio, looked through their qualifications. I tried to look for anyone who looked like they would truly hear me. Someone who would understand that my brain is very complex but I am still a person who loves and has feelings.

After a long search I found a therapist that I feel comfortable enough to express my thoughts. I am able to recall events without feeling pitied or judged. I’m not gonna sit here and act like I’m 7 months into recovery. It’s literally been 6 weeks. But I feel like I’m heading the right direction. I have a lot of shit going on in my head but I just want more than anything to be able to function like everyone else. So I’m blogging. Something I’ve literally never done!

[goodlucktai]

soft ground, claiming moon

fear the fall and where we’ll land

@natsumeweek 2023 day 3; kindness/cruelty read on ao3

(previous) (next) 

x

For a moment, no one moves or speaks or even breathes. Takashi himself is frozen, mind completely blank. This is so far from anything he could have expected that his body doesn’t know how to react. 

Then Taki blurts, “Is that Natori Shuuichi?”

“Wait, the guy from that dumb show Satchan and Sasada argue about every week?” Kitamoto says dubiously. 

Their resident witch twitches, offended, and Nishimura says, “It’s not dumb, it’s really good! There’s nuance! You just have to give it a chance.”

Unmoved, Kitamoto says, “Okay but isn’t he, like, famous? What’s he doing here?”

Their voices are a static wash of sound. Takashi doesn’t hear a word. He’s hyper-focused on the man in front of them. Natori’s expression is still smiling, but that’s his T.V. smile. There’s no warmth to it at all. Takashi can tell the difference. 

Maybe Tanuma can, too, or maybe he just knows how to read Takashi better than most people, because Tanuma shifts to the side until he has a shoulder in front of Nishimura. He dips a hand into the pocket he keeps his prayer beads in. There’s not much he can do against another human person, but if it came down to it, he would be able to guard against the shiki at least.

Here. In his home. While his father is away and his friend is in pain. 

Takashi realizes that his heart is racing, but not with fear. It feels more like anger. 

How dare Natori show up here? How dare he look at Nishimura like he’s some sort of monster? He doesn’t even know the whole story. He didn’t see Nishimura in that hospital room. 

“Um,” Nishimura says, overly loud, not passing for normal at all, “um, not to sound lame or anything, but can I get your autograph?”

He’s excited. Just for a second, the moon is the last thing on his mind. 

But the shiki react to his question like Nishimura just threw a knife at them, in Sasago and Urihime’s case, baring their teeth and reaching for their weapons. Hiiragi tilts her head an inch to the left and otherwise doesn’t move at all. 

They’re visible here, where Taki has laid dozens of circles in the earth. Nishimura flinches back and the shining expression on his face goes shuttered, a window closing against the cold. 

At the same time Tanuma pulls the rosary out of his pocket, and Taki lifts chalk dust-covered fingers, and Kitamoto yanks Nishimura a whole two steps back behind everyone else, Nyanko-sensei disappears in a thick screen of smoke. 

When it clears, he towers above them all in his true form. The fluffy cloud tail of his lashes a few times, knocking a few small boughs from a nearby tree, before he settles down in a half-moon curl around his kids. 

Natori’s shiki stiffen. They would fight sensei unflinchingly if they were ordered to, but they’re outclassed and they know it. Natori’s smile has tapered off but he still has that silver stake in his hand.

“Good grief,” Nyanko-sensei rumbles. “I hate fleas.”

“Sensei?” Nishimura says. He’s squished between Kitamoto and Taki and half-buried in downy white fur, looking torn between bewildered and offended. There’s a faint shadow of the wolf looming in his eyes. “Natsume, what’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Takashi says shortly. “Natori just likes to show up without warning. Or an invitation.”

“And his familiars are poorly trained,” Taki, who was once famously trapped on a tricky mountain ledge for two hours because her kitsune threw a tantrum when she forgot to bring them aburaage as a treat, snaps meanly. 

“Don’t worry about the fleas,” sensei orders. “Go plate that cake already.”

“Sensei,” Nishimura argues, but he’s buffeted forward with a bump from Nyanko-sensei’s great head. 

Kitamoto looks like he’s one more big surprise away from a meltdown, but he uses that momentum to begin dragging Nishimura the rest of the way to the temple, giving Natori a wide berth and a suspicious look. Taki goes with them, glaring over her shoulder with every step. 

Tanuma looks very worried about the standoff occuring in his yard, rubbing one of the beads between his fingers anxiously.

“Should I call Misuzu?” he asks Takashi in a quiet tone. “He always has frogs nearby. There’s usually at least three in the temple somewhere.”

“No need,” Takashi replies. “Sensei and I will handle this.”

Tanuma lingers for another moment, but a glance up at Nyanko-sensei seems to convince him. He passes by Natori with a skittish sidelong look. Natori’s expression turns pained at the way Tanuma hurries out of his proximity. 

When the doors of the temple have shut, Natori says very gently, “Natsume. You know I had to come.”

Takashi says, “But you didn’t.”

“You are in over your head. There is absolutely no way you could be prepared to deal with—what must be dealt with. There’s hardly any text about it anywhere.”

“And if humans don’t have the knowledge recorded, it doesn’t exist?” sensei asks sardonically. “Spare me your self-importance, exorcist. It was your kind that caused this mess in the first place.” 

Normally, Takashi would play mediator between the two, try to check their frankly ridiculous egos, but he can feel his own temper fraying apart and doesn’t have the mental fortitude to spare.  

He can’t remember ever being angrier than this. He can feel the spirits in Yatsuhara becoming agitated, all stirred up because of him. 

“Playing the blame game is a waste of everyone’s time,” Natori says harshly. He’s disquieted by sensei’s remark; it’s obvious in the way he hustles past it. “I’m here to help, whether you believe me or not.”

“Then help,” Takashi says. He doesn’t recognize his own voice. “Don’t hunt. Throw that weapon away.” The way the silver shines in the low light is making him sick. 

“I can’t do that,” Natori says. “You know I can’t do that. He’s going to turn.”

“It doesn’t mean he has to die.”

“He’s a monster. He’ll hurt you, he won’t have a choice.”

“And you think I would just stand there and let it happen?” 

“I think you have a history of doing exactly that.”

It hurts because Natori says it softly.

With a deep breath, Takashi says, “If he’s a monster, so am I. You came here to kill me, too, a year ago. What stopped you then?”

He’ll regret it later because of the way Natori’s whole body seems to crumple at his words. He knows the older man regrets the nature of their first meeting, for all that he was acting on the best information he had at the time. 

For now, he presses on, “You met me. You made an exception. I didn’t hurt anyone. I wouldn’t.” 

Takashi presses his hands together, half in pleading, half to keep a solid grip on his cognizance, because the wilderness inside him is beckoning him ever deeper. It wants him to let go and tear asunder, the way of earthquakes and tsunamis. 

But he won’t. That’s the whole point. 

“Nishimura wouldn’t either,” he goes on. “He would never. If you would just meet him I know you’d understand.”

Natori doesn’t say anything right away. Dusk is upon them, the sky vivid with sunset colors. They are inching ever closer to nightfall. Soon they’ll be out of time to talk. Takashi needs him to be convinced sooner than later. 

Nyanko-sensei’s tail flicks idly. He would never admit to caring about any of the humans who fill his days, but Takashi knows he has a particular fondness for the colorful, chaotic Nishimura. If it came down to protecting him, he would tear his way through Natori’s shiki with his teeth. 

Takashi would prefer it not to come to that. 

Suddenly, Hiiragi steps between their two parties, and puts Takashi and sensei behind her. Facing her master, she tells him, “I know that you’re kind.”

She draws back her sleeve, revealing the neat bandage wrapped carefully around her arm.

“I know that you want to be kind,” Hiiragi says.

For a handful of seconds that feel more like an hour, Natori stares at her without speaking. Then he grinds the heels of his hands into his eyes and sighs with feeling.

Hope floods Takashi’s heart, but he doesn’t relax until Natori tosses that silver stake down. 

“Alright,” the exorcist says wearily. “We’ll try it your way.”

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

Catch me in Miami! I'll be at Books and Books in Coral Gables TOMORROW (Jan 22) at 8PM. Berliners: Otherland has added a second date (Jan 28) for my book-talk after the first one sold out - book now!

#20yrsago RIP, Whole Earth Review https://web.archive.org/web/20040202031838/https://www.worldchanging.com/archives/000338.html

#15yrsago Media helped create the financial meltdown https://web.archive.org/web/20090125204013/http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/01/23/the_medias_role_in_the_financial_crisis/

#10yrsago Ukraine government sends text to protesters: “Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance” https://memex.craphound.com/2014/01/23/ukraine-government-sends-text-to-protesters-dear-subscriber-you-are-registered-as-a-participant-in-a-mass-disturbance/

#10yrsago What Makes Jo Walton So Great https://www.tor.com/2014/01/21/what-makes-jo-walton-so-great/

#5yrsago After Net Neutrality repeal, Comcast, Charter and Verizon cut investment in their networks https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/01/sorry-ajit-comcast-lowered-cable-investment-despite-net-neutrality-repeal/

#5yrsago Data-broker implicated in bounty-hunters’ access to mobile location data lobbied FCC to fight consent for sharing location data https://www.vice.com/en/article/vbwgw8/zumigo-phone-location-data-sold-lobbied-fcc-consent

#5yrsago Limits to trickle-down: Trump’s tax-cut “boom” fizzles https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/23/business/investment-boom-tax-cuts-economy/index.html

#5yrsago Corporate America projects giant profits from climate disasters https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-22/muggy-disney-parks-downed-at-t-towers-firms-tally-climate-risk

#5yrsago After six days, LA teachers settle their strike, wringing huge concessions out of the school district https://jacobin.com/2019/01/la-teachers-strike-contract-arlene-inouye/

#5yrsago Winners Take All: the Davos Edition (how elites launder looting with phoney philanthropy) https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/jan/22/the-new-elites-phoney-crusade-to-save-the-world-without-changing-anything

#5yrsago How a political outsider’s fundraising tool is helping insurgent, working-class Dems mount primary challenges and campaigns https://theintercept.com/2019/01/23/grassroots-analytics-campaign-donations/

#1yrago Eggflation is just more price-gouging https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/23/cant-make-an-omelet/#keep-calm-and-crack-on

I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

[theshowliveontour]

When Niall Horan released his debut single “This Town” in 2016, fans and critics alike praised his nuanced storytelling and ability to capture his audience with just a strum of a guitar and a gentle croon. Almost a decade since that release, Horan’s artistry hasn’t faltered — he’s gone from strength to strength, crafting a body of work that is both nostalgic and timeless. Now, with his The Show: Live on Tour, named after his acclaimed 2023 album, he’s reminding all of us just how much he is a showman at heart.

Horan played to a completely packed Wembley Arena last week with many camping out hours to secure a spot on the floor. It’s the same feverish, infectious energy that first began over 14 years ago which, much to Horan’s dismay, hasn’t waned at all. Although it’s difficult to untether Horan from his days in One Direction, he spends moments of the show reflecting on the “14 years of memories” he created in and around the arena and London. The Show: Live on Tour began in Belfast a few weeks back. The first show, he ended it with the words, “This is going to be the best year yet.” Just a handful of days later, he is clearly still revelling in the feeling of being back on stage.

Like the ’70s greats before him, Horan is meant to be heard live. Horan thrives and excels when he’s performing and is a true artist’s artist — not just writing songs, but crafting entire worlds around them. “Nice To Meet Ya” might’ve been an obvious choice for an opening song, but with the context that Horan hasn’t toured since 2018 and wasn’t able to perform his incredible sophomore album, Heartbreak Weather, to audiences due to the pandemic. If the album The Show orbits around who Horan is today as a person, a musician, and a songwriter, the tour is, in a way, serving as a reintroduction to who he is as a performer.

The Show: Live on Tour production sees his six-piece band stand atop varying stages, a nod to the old-school variety show performances. Curtains fall and fold together with images projected — sometimes it’s a billboard that reads THE SHOW, other times it’s a moon soaring through the night sky. It’s the little nods to the world of The Show that make it a spectacle.

When a mirrorball drops — a sign that means Horan is about to play a song from his boyband days — fans erupt into screams. Quickly after, the chords of “Stockholm Syndrome” begin to play and new and old fans alike come together to sing. Horan lets us into his mind for a moment, affectionately saying, “I do this for a living,” which he was reflecting upon during the show.

Horan has a knack for making a 12,000+ arena feel as intimate as a 200-cap venue, using songs like “This Town,” “Flicker,” and the delicate ballad “You Could Start a Cult,” a clear fan favourite, to showcase that further. Every quiet, sombre moment is completely contrasted with a stadium-sized roar from fans responding to Horan’s every childlike smirk and high note. Bringing out Canadian singer/songwriter Shawn Mendes for a duet of his hit “Treat You Better,” and one of his first live performances in years, speaks to Horan’s love towards his fellow singer/songwriters.

Teetering between the hits — think “Slow Hands,” “Meltdown” and “Heartbreak Weather” — and the fan faves like “Everywhere,” “Save My Life” and “Mirrors,” Horan keeps the energy high throughout the entire show — a feat for solo acts. Although the setlist was constructed to have a bit of everything, when scrolling Twitter after the gig I read a tweet which talks about how he made the setlist for die-hard fans. It’s true — it’s a collection of songs that demonstrate his growth and grit as an artist, but also were clearly selected with his fans at the forefront of his mind.

As the show comes to a close, Horan’s penultimate song is “Save My Life.” Horan knows the true meaning it holds, but for fans, it speaks to the beauty of a fan and artist relationship and how the latter’s music shapes the former’s lives. Throughout the show, seeing fans holding up fan projects and crying to various songs is a moving thing for Horan to witness. 14 years on and he’s still in awe of the magic he’s been able to make through his work.

For fans who have yet to see Horan live on this tour, he describes it best in The Show‘s title track: Hold tight, get ready for the ride.

[that-glitter-chick]

My entry for day one of SkyStar Week 2023! I like to write little ficlits and assign songs to my art as a bonus.

Prompt: Curious, Song: I want to hold your hand by The Beatles.

Ficlit: Collision Course

“What’cha working on Star?”

“Gah! Nothing.” Starscream jumped, startled by the normally welcomed voice’s sudden appearance so close to his audio receptor. He just as quickly flung himself over his datapad, covering it with his arms to obstruct his Amida Endura’s view of its contents. If the handsome giant knew the device had a sketchy portrait of himself, drawn so meticulously and lovingly by his little companion, Starscream would fling himself into the next black hole he came upon.

Chuckling good naturally, Jetfire stepped back with his servos up in surrender. “Ok, I get it. Classified subject.” He smiled warmly down at his much shorter lab partner. “I just came over to ask if you would like to join me. I’m going to Maccadam’s to wind down a little before heading home.”

Starscream smirked mischievously “Only if you’re buying big guy. Let me clean up here and I’ll be right with you.”

“Meet you in the foyer?” Skyfire suggested and Starscream nodded. As he turned to leave the large shuttle-former stopped to look over his shoulder “Would you like me to invite your brothers as well?”

“No!” The small seeker caught himself short at his own outburst but his friend was used to such dramatic behavior. More calmly, Starscream explained “They’re busy tonight. Uh, I understand if you’d rather not just hang out with me.” He seemed to deflate into himself at the thought. “I know Thundercracker is more charming and Skywarp more fun than I am…”

Returning to his friend’s side, Skyfire knelt and hugged him. Pulling back to look his partner in the optics, blue meeting crimson, Skyfire murmured gently, “Actually I was offering for your sake. You seem more at ease when with your Trin. But to be perfectly honest,” Skyfire was blushing to beat the proverbial band “I much prefer having your company all to myself.”

“I’m all yours.” Starscream choked a little on a sudden gasp at his own impulsive admittance. But before he could stutter a save for himself, Skyfire grinned brightly, stood back up and said,

“Great! It’s a date then. I’ll go lock up my lab and wait for you to get done here.” Just as he reached the door, the same time Starscream was having a processor meltdown over the term ‘date’ having been used so nonchalantly, he turned and smiled impishly. “Oh and Star…”

“Yeah…?” The Seeker asked cautiously.

“You’re a talented artist. I’ve never looked better.” He winked a sky blue optic and quickly retreated from the room as Starscream’s temper erupted.

“You peeked! You total cheat! It’s not done yet. You’re buying me two rounds for that! Sheesh.”

[im-just-a-br0adway-baby]

Encantober 2023 Day 7: Storm

The Encanto was going through one of the worst tropical storms they had in a long time. The entire village had to stay indoors until the storm wore off. Knowing how bad it was going, it seemed like they were going to be staying inside for at least a week. All the villagers could think was, “what has gotten Pepa so upset that she’s storming this bad?”

In Casita, the Madrigal family could not help but notice Pepa’s door acting up. The rest of the family decided that it was best to leave her alone and stay in their respective rooms except for meals during the storm to keep themselves safe. Julieta and Agustin suggested that Felix stayed in their room during the storm, and while he agreed at first, all he could think to himself was how awful his wife was feeling and wanted to be there for her.

“I really don’t think I should be in here anymore. Pepa’s been at this emotional meltdown for over an hour. I need to be there for her.”

“Are you sure? Because if I were you, I would be terrified to step foot in my room. I never experienced her mood being this bad before,” Agustin explained.

“No me importa. I was never scared of her, ever since we first met. What makes you think I’m going to be scared of her now?”

“I was just giving you my opinion. I would just be cautious.”

Felix shrugged it off as Julieta came back in the room with a full place of arepas. “I figured we could enjoy some before the kids see us and start begging us for some.”

Agustin, Felix, and Julieta grabbed an arepa each from the plate and took a bite of them simultaneously. “Juli, do you think I’m not making the right decision by checking up on Pepa?”

“Felix, what makes you think you’re not making the right decision?”

“Because Agustin is telling me that he would be too terrified to even enter the room if he was in this situation.”

“Oh, you know that Agustin would be scared in any unfamiliar situation. I’ve known you for most of our lives, and nobody can calm Pepa down like you can. There’s no need for you to feel as hesitant as you are right now.”

Felix took another bite out of his arepa. “Gracias, Julieta; I figured I wasn’t making a wrong decision. I just needed someone to confirm for me.”

“De nada, Felix; and you don’t need any confirmation. You’re already great at making good decisions.”

Felix grabbed another arepa from the plate and put it in a handkerchief for Pepa after she calmed down. He made his way out of Julieta’s room and stared across the hall to see Pepa’s door. It was flashing so constantly that none of the other doors have ever flashed before. He slowly made his way to his room to see how Pepa was doing. Once he got to his room, he slowly opened the door to see Pepa on the bed, the room flooded with rain and storm clouds surrounding it. She did not put her head up until she heard Felix’s voice.

“...Pepi? Is everything okay?” he asked as he made his way into the room.

Pepa put her head up, but continued crying. “Go away,” she said bluntly.

“Look, I see that you’re upset right now, but I just want to try to help you. There is a massive tropical storm spreading throughout the Encanto and we’re scared we need to stay evacuated for at least a week.”

“So? I’ve lived here my entire life and had my gift for over forty-five years. They know how to deal with this.”

“Not to this extreme. I never remembered seeing a storm this bad in the Encanto.”

Pepa ignored her husband and continued crying into her pillow, allowing the clouds and flood to grow. Felix never felt this lost his entire life. Normally, he would never be this lost in helping Pepa. Normally, he would have an answer when it came to calming down his wife. But right now, he has nothing.

Felix sat on his bedside as Pepa continued crying. All he could think about was how he was going to fail as a husband if this was not solved immediately. As much as she tried to, she just could not stop crying. She tried to do everything in her power to stop, but the tears just kept on coming. Not even the presence of her husband could calm her down at the moment. That was, until Felix had an idea.

“Stay right there, Pepita, I’m going to get something for you.”

Felix left the room to leave Pepa be for a couple minutes. He made his way down the hall and knocked on the nursery’s door. Mirabel answered the door to see her uncle standing in front of the door.

“I thought we were supposed to be in our rooms right now. It’s still pretty bad right now.”

“I know, Mira, but I think I know what will calm Pepa down. Do you have any sewing supplies we could use together?”

“I have a lot of it. But I thought you didn’t know how to sew.”

“That’s why I’m asking you to help me. You also know what fabrics and scents calm Pepa down more than anyone else in this house. If you help me make something that could be the calmest thing imaginable, maybe the storm will pass.”

Mirabel agreed after taking out her box of sewing supplies. She showed Felix all the fabrics she often used and grabbed another box from her closet. It was filled with scents she sometimes used when she wanted to give anything she made a little extra kick. 

“I have every fabric that every member of this family likes in this box, and every scent this family likes in this other box. Since Pepa’s most comforting fabrics and absolute favorite scent is available, we can make a little toy for her that should calm her down instantly.”

Felix could not be any more grateful for having a niece as smart as Mirabel. Not only did she know which fabrics comforted which family members, but she also knew what scents every family member loved better than anyone else. The uncle and niece dug through the boxes to find Pepa’s most comforting fabric to begin making a toy for her.

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

The toy took about two hours to finish, but they finished it and Felix took it and made his way back to his room. Pepa’s door was still flashing and the storm was starting to get worse. Felix was starting to tremble because now he thought this was not going to work. Regardless, he still made his way back to his room in hopes that it would. He knocked on the door as slowly as he could until Casita opened the door for him. He made his way into his room to see his wife still crying into her pillow, in the same position she was in when he left.

“Pepi, I have something for you. Do you want to see it?”

Pepa ignored him and continued crying into her pillow. Felix moved closer to her and sat on their bedside in hopes he could smell the vanilla scent. He already knew before Mirabel told him that it was her favorite smell.

“It’s super comforting. Mirabel helped me make it.”

Pepa reached her hand out to try and grab the toy from Felix, so he put it in her hand. She put her hand back to notice it was silk. It was the most comforting fabric to her; almost every cuddle toy she owned was made out of silk. Not that long after, she smelled the vanilla scent from the toy and immediately stopped crying. She continued feeling and smelling the toy; it felt like it was a small plush bunny. Pepa lifted her head from her pillow to see a small, white, silk bunny with a vanilla scent to it. Her clouds slowly began to disappear and the storm turned into a small drizzle.

“Wow; this is the best thing anyone has ever given to me. How did you make this?”

“I got help from Mirabel. I didn’t think anything would calm you down, because I tried to talk to you and you ignored me.”

“Lo siento, mi amor; I never meant to ignore you out of harm. I was just too angry to talk to anyone and I didn’t want to hurt you.”

The couple hugged each other as Pepa’s storm clouds turned into sunshine and rainbows. “What got you so angry in the first place?” Felix asked.

“I was out doing chores and I saw a couple of girls coming into the fields. They came closer to me and I saw it was my high school bully, Valentina, with girls that I had never seen before. She came up to me and made all these comments about my insecurities to see if she could make me snap, and she did. Before the storm started, I… beat her just like I often did when we were teenagers.”

Felix hugged his wife one more time while she squeezed the bunny. The storm may have stopped, but there was a lot of damage, both in the Encanto and inside Pepa, that needed to be fixed. He knew it was going to be a hard job when he started dating her, but he took it for over thirty years and was still happy to do it now.