#how do i marry a fictional character tutorial

[yourlocalsmutwriter]

The triptych of love, truth and .... - Farleigh Start

cw: cheating, dubcon

Farleigh had gotten you late for class. He pulled you through the corridors, but not before you could glance at a clock. 20 minutes had passed since the tutorial had started. But he claimed he knew how to get you there in a blink of an eye. Well you sure had blinked plenty.

"Why do I even bother with you?" You asked, clearly annoyed.

"Because I'm the only person you can stand in this school?" He said back. Before you could argue, and defend Felix, Farleigh very untactfully stormed into the room you two were looking for.

At the presence of a third (and a fourth if you count the teacher) person you quickly pulled your hand from Farleigh's. Who, by the way, was profusely apologizing to the teacher, with you nodding gravely. Upon hearing about your friend, the professor went on about Frederica Start, nee Catton. Catton. Catton. That name rang in your head as you looked at your left hand and the tacky diamond there. You were engaged to Felix Catton. A girl at 20 was about to be married to someone she didn't even love that much.

You sat down. No one asked about your name. It was as if you didn't exist, everyone thought that. Except Farleigh. Who, by the way had stopped talking. So you took your cue to focus on the essay being read. After hearing Farleigh and Oliver arguing back and forth, you simply mouthed "sorry" to the latter and left with a wave. The sun reflected off of your ring and shone in his face.

You had all but forgotten about Oliver. Somehow you didn't connect the dots when Felix told you about some guy fixing his bike. But at another night at the pub, when your fiancé invited him to the table, you had no choice but to socialize.

"Jägerbombs" Farleigh was chanting. You kicked him lightly under the table, a nonverbal "shut up". Felix saw that and pulled your legs towards himself, making you shiver at the touch of his exposed skin to yours. Oliver was shifty.

"Come on man, you can't snake out. Especially not on Lucy's favorite round." Farleigh protested, using you as a scapegoat.

"Lucy?" Oliver questioned, successfully diverting the attention.

"Don't mind Farleigh. He likes to play this little game where he calls me by a fictional name. And I have to guess which character he's referring to. Though I would have a harder time if I hadn't forced him to watch "While you were sleeping" with me."

You waited for a yes, but instead your friend made a buzzer sound. "Eh, think again. A room with a view. Now, loser, stop distracting Oliver and let him get the shots."

One of Felix's friends said something about the Jager finally getting you lucky. You shrugged and shrink into Felix. He flips that guy off. Your hand accidentally rests on Farleigh's thigh. He squeezes in briefly for support and lets go. By then, your fiancee is already helping his new friend at the bar. You quickly forget about the embarrassment as soon as the brown liquor hits your throat.

Sadly your hangover, is not as unexistant as your sex life. That's right, you had Felix's ring on your finger, but not much else. His parents were all for sexual liberation. For him. For you, it was literally needing to see blood on the sheets at the wedding night. Normally you wouldn't have cared and already slept with Felix. But with all that talk about how sacred your virginity is and how everyone would know you lost it, you were a bit scared. It's not like you didn't try to work around it. Makeouts, dry humping, hand jobs, blowjobs, you gave it all to Felix. You'd let him finger you, eat you out, you'd even pretend to consider his suggestions of "the catholic loophole". But even with that, he still needed to get his dick wet. That's when Annabel walked into the picture. You had seen them around flirting unabashedly at parties. He had even taken her to his room. You acted like that hadn't bothered you. But you sure were a bad actress. When he brushed you off, for Oliver in the sweltering heat you ran to your friend. Getting a few suspicious looks, you barged into Farleigh's room. Who was almost naked.

At your interruption he scrambled to cover up, pulling a book over his tight boxers. Ironically it was "I love dick" by Chris Kraus. You burst out laughing and so did he.

"I could leave." You suggested.

"I don't want you to leave .'' He says. ''Now, what did my fuckass cousin do this time, and more importantly, how will we use it against him.''

''He slept with Annabel. And might be sleeping with Oliver as we speak. I'm thinking, divorce.''

''You always go to that, dig deeper. I'm thinking blackmail. Or an eye for an eye, cheating for cheating.''

''As tempting as that sounds, I don't think there's a single guy within this school that a. knows who I am and finds me attractive enough and b. isn't scared of what Felix might do if he finds out.''

''I do.'' he replies and cups your face, lips dangerously close to yours, waiting. And you kiss him. And it's better that Felix, so much better. Before you know it, you're on his bed and your dress is on his floor. As his lips trail down your neck and towards your chest, you realize just what might happen.

''Farleigh, what are we doing? We should'' before you could say stop, he rolls your nipple under his fingers and you groan. His tongue is on the other one and you are desperate. You are fucking soaked. Once you realize just how turned on you were and that you were about to have an orgasm from your cousin-in-law playing with your tits, you crawl from underneath him with a ''I have to pee. Then I'm going.'' and you slammed the bathroom door shut. You close your eyes. You still see Farleigh. You attempt to just wipe away your arousal, but you give up and rub your clit to orgasm in the bathroom. When you get out, your dress is waiting for you. Farleigh is underneath the covers, but it's obvious what his hands are doing. Before you're tempted to help him, you leave. The freshman who sees you getting dressed in the hallway gets his next semester paid for, in exchange for silence. Saltburn is yet to come.

Felix brings Oliver. You mutter something about this becoming the plot of the Secret History. Farleigh takes to calling you Camilla. You take to flipping him off. Overhearing your fiancé give "his friend" the tour, you make sure that Felix's looks decent. When your future husband mentions the shared bathroom, you add

"Sometimes I'll use it as well. So make sure to not just leave it open. And well don't mention I was here. Seriously, don't wanna get in trouble. Felix's parents think that we're just gonna start doing it every time we're alone in a room."

"And they're right " Felix adds and mock humps you into the bed. You just roll your eyes and move from underneath him.

"I'll let my golden boy continue lecturing you. Don't want the Cattons think I'm into threesomes."

Before you could hear what the boys add as a punchline, you're gone. Talks with Pamela, dinners, breakfasts pass. Oliver is both not fitting and is. Farleigh is his usual self. You hate yourself for being attracted to it. But no one sees. At least that's what you think, until. The fucking field. Usually the "layout" was Felix, Farleigh, Venetia and you. That way there was still an illusion that you and Felix didn't see eachother naked. But this time, while you were stripping with V, she whispered to you.

"Can you be by my cousin? I wanna call Oliver over. And he won't see me unless I'm at the end."

"Sure", you replied without even thinking. But as soon as you saw the boys, you realized your mistake. You plopped down by Farleigh and he opened his eyes.

"Well,you're not who I was expecting." he said and quickly glanced at your ass. His smell, his voice, even his presence was making you wet. Thankfully Venetia comes to your rescue, by calling out Oliver. Who knew you'd be happy to see him. But just as you're about to see a lot more of Mr. Quick, the man next to you covers your eyes. But Venetia literally slaps away Farleigh's hands and they end up on your tits. You're as red as humanly possibly. All you can say is a warning about the thistles.

Oliver looks at you more. He notices how while reading Harry Potter you agree with Farleigh's threesome comments. How you're an unfair umpire in their tennis game. How after the ring, you suggest only the 5 of you watch another movie. How it features a stick and poke tattoo scene and you're raving about it, and how you somehow convince Farleigh to give you one. Oh, how cruel of you to want it on your pantyline, making Farleigh bend down and align with your pussy. And for you, to request to be branded with Felix's name, so heartless. But Oliver sees how conniving you really are when you claim that anything past the 1st letter hurts too much.

"That way you're pleasing both of them, aren't you, Cleo." Oliver says, looking between your fiancee and his cousin.

"I'll fix it professionally when I'm out of here. And I mean, if Farleigh uses the same intensity in poking girls as he poked me with the needle, then I know I've made the right choice." You snap. But that misunderstanding rocks the foundation between you and all of the men. So you set out to fix it.

You start with Felix. Not because you want to, but because it's easier. All you need to do is sneak into his room in a towel and nothing more.

"Thought you needed some help in scrubbing your back?". Felix practically rips off the towel and tosses you on the bed. Spreading your legs, kissing your neck, muffling your moans with his hands.

"Bathroom. Please. More soundproof." you managed to say. "You don't want Oliver to get jealous, do you?" you add. That's all it takes for him to literally sweep you away. Thank God for possessiveness. Felix draws the bath, gets in and lazily circles your clit. He's teasing you, determined to not even finger you. Something about only good girls getting to be filled. You whine and beg, plead for more. Truth is, you act. You couldn't give a fuck what Felix is doing to you. Your body is reacting. He's rubbing your clit, of course you're gonna feel good. His fingers were made for touching fine things, your pussy was no exception. Your mind whispers that he's had plenty of time to practice pleasing women. Your brain also sabotages you by replaying naked Farleigh on a loop. You're so close, gaze hyperfocused on your fiancee and the other's cock. The two men's features blend together. You moan in swear words, so you don't fuck up.

"Look at you, getting your cunt wet just from a little touching. That sensitive little pussy needs me so bad, huh? Well be a good future wife and come with me." With that, Felix finishes you off. Your body orgasm with him. 1 down, 1 to go. Your future husband looks like he'll fall asleep. Before he does, you ask.

"Should we move the wedding. Not too much. Maybe, the end of summer, somewhere before we start term? I just wanna already, you know?"

"Fuck? Come on, you just fucking drenched my fingers and you can't say fuck? Let's sleep on it."

You agree and sneak off to your next target. Farleigh has you do a stupid grovel mock apology. You walk in and spew 5 of Felix's secrets before attempting a sincere sorry. To nobody's surprise, your friend says,

"You were on thin ice, cause you were annoying as hell. But everyone else is way worse."

"Thank you and shut the fuck up.". Of course you talk it out. A conversation about masculinity, sexuality, male fragility and queerness. You argue which cis white men of his family line are the worst. He reminds you that it's gonna be your family line too soon. You kiss him to shut him up. He kisses you back to prove that earlier it hadn't been a mistake. When it all heats up and you go to straddle him, you see it. Oliver and Venetia. And you make Farleigh stop, yet again to look with you. But this time you don't bolt away from his room after. But you don't stay too long either.

Farleigh tells and you have to console Felix and act shocked. Now your fiance keeps you attached to his hip. You're there when he argues with Oliver. You're there when he talks money with Farleigh. Of course everything changes at the Henry's party. You know his family would call your closeness inappropriate. He pisses her off by instead pulling his sister in his lap. And you sit by Farleigh. Felix announces his leave soon after karaoke started, with an implication for you to follow. You wait, just enough to be pulled into a conversation with the same men you were supposed to avoid. The friend and the cousin. The perceived Casanova and the real one.

Farleigh poses the fuck, marry, kill as chuck, fuck, marry and you stifle a laugh. Then Oliver rebuts with the

"I think you're more interested in fucking me. Or, should I say, us? Don't act shocked, little Cleo. It's not your forte, I saw. You knew. And I know you did. I'm not sure how though. You're not important now. Maybe you never were." Oliver wounds you, in the way he only knows how. You tune out the rest of his convo with Farleigh. You can only focus on the glint of revenge in your friend's eyes. Farleigh plays a song. You hum it under your breath, waiting. You wonder if he's doing this for you. As Oliver sings, he is cruel once again.

"Farleigh, this is your song too. Hell, fucking take Cleo, don't you? You two certainly are used to dueting." You grip the microphone tightly and harmonise effortlessly with your friend about someone taking you to a restaurant off Broadway.

You expect Felix to come after you, like a rabid dog. But he's done with all of the bullshit around you. So you're on your own. Desperately needing a de-stress and unable to sleep, you turn to the only solution. Masturbation. You're so wet and desperate. Farleigh has been leaving you high and dry, too scared to actually be with you. Felix was depriving you, as a form of control. So you reached for the nearest phallic object, your hairbrush. This was a bad idea. But you needed something new, something different. Picturing only Farleigh now, you play with your clit. You slide your fingers inside of you. First one. Then a second. You pull them out and they're back rubbing your sweet spot. Then you slowly, carefully put the hairbrush before your entrance. You feel a slight pain at the stretch, but as soon as your pussy clenches against the new object, it's coupled with adrenaline and pleasure. Yep, that was it, you were getting married first thing tomorrow if the real thing felt like this.

You were so dazed by chasing your release that you didn't notice Oliver coming in to your room. He was surprised by the sight, but that didn't deter his plan. In a second his hand was muffling your mouth and the other had you by the wrists. You were led somewhere in the dark in a pink nightgown and and a hairbrush still inside you. As soon as your captor noticed its presence, he was focused on moving it back and forth ever so slightly. Little did you know, it was going to get worse. Unsurprisingly you were led to Farleigh's room. He was a very heavy sleeper, because Oliver managed to position you on top of your friend. Only when the hairbrush was taken out of you and clattered on the floor, did Start wake up. He was surprised, but his brain immediately went into overdrive when seeing you helpless.

"Are you going to behave Farleigh? If you don't, Cleo gets it." Before any of you could question anything, Oliver slaps his tip against your pussy. Then he takes the other man's dick and does the same. Farleigh is horrified, but somehow hard as a rock. He knows he shouldn't be. But the sight of you, dripping wet on top of his cock was clouding his brain.

"You see, Farleigh, one of us gets to deflower this pretty little peach. If you behave, it's you. If not, then I'll do it. Oliver whispers darkly. You start, pleading, begging for your friend to do it, to say yes. It intensified when you felt Ollie spit on his hand and rub both cocks against your opening.

"You don't want it either way, I can't go through with it." Farleigh says, because you just need him to make up his mind.

"I do. Definitely not like this. But with you, it's fine. It's not just the lesser of two evils. I need you inside of me. Ever since we kissed, that's all I think about."

Despite it still being very wrong, he said "I'll behave" to Oliver and pulled you flush against his chest. Farleigh gave you a second, before thrusting into you. It was the last act of gentleness he'd allow you that night.

Once he was inside you, he was like a crazed man. Farleigh held your waist, sinking you on his cock over and over again, making you bounce. Seeing you tired, he pulled out and kept his fingers in you as he changes positions. It doesn't go unnoticed how now you're drooling into the pillow, moaning, begging for his dick.

"You know I'm not done with you, right. Gonna make you come all over me. Gonna make you mine."

When Farleigh took you from behind, it was a whole new sensation. He's inside of you, so much deeper. His fingers move to rub your clit and you finish. Wet sounds fill the room, you're ready to feel him fuck you up forever when he pulls out. He thrusts in his fist and comes all over your ass. Both of you are too exhausted to move. You don't even care that Oliver was right there, the whole time, stroking himself in a chair. Felix's mom finds you, tipped off by the help.

You play it off as an irregular period. You claim that the pain was so strong, you seeked refuge in Farleigh's bed. Why he was half naked and you no longer bleeding? Farleigh never got to answer these, as he was kicked out on the spot.

Felix kept you around, God knows why. When you asked, he just mentioned something about how marrying damaged goods would be on brand. At least you slept with him too. He had to dig up Farleigh's STI records through some unsavory means before hand. That gave you the 14 days needed after an act to confirm that you were also not pregnant. Despite you being clean, Felix still fucks you with protection, going through a pack on condoms in a weekend, trying to claim you as his.

It works for a while. Then the Cattons take Farleigh back for Oliver's birthday party. Blood thicker than water, you guessed. Felix doesn't care. He has you in a room with Farleigh and India. He has the group go around you and make out with you. "You've kissed us two already, why no India too. Give us a show. I'm sure cousin dearest already has a stiffy from seeing you." You obliged, because everyone is too drunk and coked up to recall this tomorrow. Only Farleigh's kiss is still tender, all be it still lustful. He will remember. You both know it.

Felix is on his bullshit all night. Oliver obviously annoys him more than ever. You don't ask. And then your fiance suggest the 4 of you play hide and seek in the maze.

"More like hide the sausage, with these pairings." Farleigh whispers to you, entirely too loudly. So the other man does turn it sexual, coming up with some sort of predator pray roleplay chase by pairs. You run first, disappointed that Farleigh will be hooking up with India. In fact, as you round a dead end close to the center, you hear them going at it. You turn to your captor and it's not Felix. Farleigh eats you out on his knees, as you're pressed against the maze wall. You come in a minute and you're asking him to whisk you off so you can return the favor. Despite everything in your systems, the both of you manage to fall asleep together. It was the last time you'd get a sound sleep in your life.

Morning comes. You search for Felix. After his mom finds him, you just cling to Farleigh. You know, but you refuse to see. The man with whom you were supposed to live out the rest of your life was dead.

You go to lunch. You have a seat by Farleigh, and you link hands with his under the table. James shoots you dirty looks as you play with the food. Oliver talks and talks, pretending not to hear you mutter shut up incessantly. When Farleigh speaks up, Ollie delivers his final blow.

" I'd be guilty too if I was racking up lines and fucking the dead person's fiancée"

James casts you both out. So you go, hand in hand, forever leaving Saltburn.

[supersoakerfullofblood]

hi!!! hopefully you are having a good day!!! but a quick question-

how can i give insight to a character's backstory without it look liking a word-dump?? especially if the whole story have a diary entry format.

Very good question that honestly really depends on your personal style, but here's what's worked for me.

The best advice I can give is to stop thinking of your character's history as "backstory." That's one of the words that's become so loaded in popular writing discourse as to not mean anything solid anymore, like "worldbuilding," "theme," "protagonist," etc. Words like that are helpful once you've made your own definition for them, but with so many voices in Youtube tutorials and social media posts all saying similar but different things for what these mean, it's best to find a word that better suits how you view the concept. For me, that word is "history," because like how the present is founded on actual history, our characters are only the product of their history. Characters, like people, rarely if ever operate in the present tense.

So--revealing history without the dreaded expository dump. To answer this, we first have to look at why expository dumps are so uninviting. Here's an example of it done poorly (I'm writing this as an example, not taking someone's writing to like, diss on them hah):

Cheryl took the elevator up all five floors of the haunted house, which groaned as she went, the elevator left untouched since the house's last occupants moved out. When they arrived at the penthouse suite, Doctor Gastor explained that the last residents here thought they were wizards and practiced daily at arcana. Their names were Abigail and Horace--he had renamed himself after a demon had told him his true name, so he claimed--and they wintered in this remote, northern sphere to avoid Italian summers. Horace was wealthy, Abigail poor, but he had found her in poverty and saw something of the occult in her movements, so he stole her away one summer, and the two found more in common than they would've thought, for they married the next year. Cheryl paced the floor, picked up and dusted off a book titled in runic chicken scratch, and opened the cover."

This isn't the worst example I could think of, but it has the hallmarks I'm looking for. The first issue with this expository dump ("Doctor Gaston explained... next year") is that it shatters the flow of the passage. As a writer of narrative fiction, the goal of every sentence is to lead smoothly to the next sentence. To do this, we always have to be thinking of what the reader wants to read after a given sentence. If one sentence is about an elevator groaning in a haunted house, the reader probably wants to know how Cheryl reacts to it! Is she scared of ghosts? Does she believe in ghosts? Is she scared of elevators? If so, what does she do? Move to hit a button on the elevator to stop it? If scared of ghosts, how does she internalize this? If not scared, how does she internalize perhaps how Doctor Gaston is shivering? (Is he shivering?) These are all places the reader's mind wants to go to after that sentence. Instead, we get this history about some old wizards (if I had the patience, I would've made it longer to really make it intrude on the narrative, but I don't have the patience). If this is the first time the reader's hearing about the wizards, they probably won't care about them. This synopsis of their story interrupts what the reader actually cares about, which is whatever Cheryl cares about in the moment. To fix this interruption, Cheryl could find the book of runes maybe in the chapter before this, because that gets the reader invested. The reader, just like Cheryl, wants to know why there's a book of runes in the haunted house. So Cheryl asks Doctor Gaston about it, which legitimizes this exposition, because it's also what the reader wants to know.

Another major fault of info dumps is when they don't relate to the character at all. Cheryl's history (let's say she's a girl from the country who wandered into the house on accident) has nothing to do with wizards. Maybe in the narrative, she learns to cast some spells, which makes her care about wizards, but at this point, she doesn't. If Cheryl has nothing to do with wizards, or little to do with them, then why should the audience care? When writing a character's history, you should only include the parts that matter to the character. And this written history should never be too long, because you never want to stunt the flow of the piece (what "too long" means is up to debate and your discretion and style).

Also, exposition only works when it feels genuinely embodied by the character speaking. Is Doctor Gastor explaining the wizard history, or is that the author talking? Some of it sounds like Gastor (the bit between the em dashes sounds like what he would say), but the rest sounds like Gastor is only a mouthpiece for the information I want to put out.

So, solving it. One trick I like to do when giving exposition is to make the exposition into its own mini-scene. You don't want to write, "Carmen was friends with Piper, and they went to the dance once as friends." Instead, give it some space on the page:

She and Piper were the only girls in their group who had gone quiet at curfew. Beatrice’s only crime was in whispering comments in the early hours, short things to guide the group’s banter, never loud enough to warrant arrest. “Not really, no.” “That’s nice.” Carmen nodded and drew his eyes across the crowd. “Did she sleep well?” “Beatrice?” “Yeah.” “I guess.” The path turned up the steep hill on which the dining hall was built. “I don’t know. I don’t think anyone really slept well.” “Oh.” “It’s just uncomfortable, you know?” “The girls?” She raised an eyebrow. “And the boys aren’t?” “No, they are.” He laughed, and Piper was dragged to the same laugh at Homecoming three months ago. She had requested for the Melpomene band’s recent concert recording to be played after the next pop song, and surprisingly, her request was approved. Carmen laughed as their poor performance boomed from the speakers, laughed at the disruption of a dance, and Piper laughed too. But within the minute, the concert’s strident ballad was supplanted by another chart-topping pop song. But for those forty seconds, music was displaced, and the dancers stopped; city walls fell; Piper had broken something for forty seconds, held power for forty seconds. She said now, “It’s just weird, being here. It’s all too happy. Too clean.”

Exposition can work really well in brief flashbacks. And note how the exposition starts: a mirroring of "laugh" because the image is fresh in the reader's mind, so I take them on a sort of dream logic to the past. Note also that this is planting the seeds for some relevant character-building: Piper's growth into an independent woman--"Piper had broken something for forty seconds, held power for forty seconds." Here's another example from my current WIP:

He thought of Brynjar the day he had given him the knot. It was the spring of Óskar’s sixth year, and Brynjar had taken him to the docks one morning to watch sailing men fix fresh ropes on their karves and clip pulleys to sails to tie them to the boats’ sides. “Never doubt a weaver woman,” Brynjar said, annunciating each word. “They keep everything afloat.” “‘Floating,” repeated the young Óskar. “If the ropes aren’t strong, a boat’ll flip and spin. Like this!” He lifted Óskar above his head and spun on his heels, and Óskar cackled. The father set the son on his shoulders and smiled. “Yes, we need those ladies.” Óskar felt his father’s shoulders raise, and he knew the man forged something witty in his mind. “It means, Óssie, a man is only as good as his woman. And you can tell your mother I said that.” Eldrid, Óskar’s mother, would leave in her sleep later that year, and the witches would say she was sick, and Brynjar would spend some nights looking through the cracks in his home, remembering the gray wife he woke to that morning. In his memory, Óskar did not know whether this new recollection of his mother’s passing tainted his father’s speech or if he really did turn somber, but all the same, a short silence paused the scene at the dock, and Brynjar coughed to break it. His voice was low now. “Dangerous,” he said, looking with eyes like the beads of a raspberry at the men on the dock, looking through them. His jowls lowered like curtains, forced low with the hill of a frown, and in the memory, his skin blued and bloated. “It’s dangerous out there, Óssie. Be safe.” He sniffed. “Be well.” “Óskar?” Ingrid stole him. He breathed back into the world and saw now that the road had turned down and the rock wall had turned in, and they approached a strip of sea.

In addition to providing a character's history, this also fleshes out the world: the importance of women and boats, the dangers of the sea. Before the flashback, Oskar is thinking about a knot, so he thinks about the day he got the knot, which makes him think about sailing boats. At the end of the flashback, he thinks about the ocean ("looking through [the sailors]," so probably at the ocean), thinks about his father's skin if he drowned, and back in the present-tense, uh oh, Oskar is nearing the ocean. It all flows together; we're guiding our reader.

But these are only small exposition dumps, and sometimes, we need to convey much more information. You can subtly convey much more information than you realize through dialogue and description, because how a character talks and acts is guided by their histories. If a character is short-spoken, they may have had some interpersonal trauma that you can flesh out more when the time is right:

“No,” Sylvia whispered, trapping Chloe again with her stare, desperate. “I can’t sleep over.” “Why not?” Jane asked. “Mom says I have to be home by seven.” She looked down at her empty plate, at the crumbs from one slice of pizza. “But you haven’t asked her,” Jane prodded. She shook her head. “I did before.” Still in disbelief, Jane asked, “What did she say?” “She said I have to be home by seven.” She blushed. “And I can do whatever till then.” “Oh,” Jane said. She slunk back in her chair. Chloe turned back to her parents. “Can you call Jane’s mom?” “Sure thing.” “Thanks!” She swiveled back and, fingering the fruit Phoebe scrambled on her plate, decided to eat it later. She grabbed a second slice from the box. Moments passed as they ate in silence, Sylvia watching her plate, and the muffled television played something in the living room. Mom and dad laughed. “I should go,” Sylvia said. She bumped the table as she stood, reciting, “Thank you for having me.” Jane looked at the clock hovering above the front door. “It’s only six-twenty.” “I need to go home.” “Oh.” Jane stuttered. “I’ll see you next week!” Chloe said the same. “Thank you. See you.” She opened the door and slipped through. It clicked behind her. Chloe and Jane paused their gnawing and looked up at each other, sharing a thought. They hadn’t heard a car grumble on the gravel, didn’t hear anything drive by at all, and neither of them knew how close she lived. They scraped their chairs from the table and crept to the dining room window like characters in a Jones Bones movie, Jane thought. But when they pulled back the curtain, she was gone. No cars drove on the street, and the sidewalk was empty. A golden glare shrouded the street and surrounding houses as the sun lowered behind a roof.

Throughout this book (The Ghosts of Glass Lake, available now ;)), it's implied that Sylvia has a controlling and/or abusive mother. In this scene, Sylvia is curt and direct. You can almost feel the urgency behind her words, how she bumps the table as she stands, and how it almost sounds like she's rehearsed this exit. It's also implied that no one came to pick her up--she walked home, but neither Jane nor Chloe know where she lives, and neither does the reader. Maybe she walked home for miles because her mother didn't pick her up. You can get a lot of meat from implications!

But still, there are times when you just need a lot of dense exposition, usually near the beginning of a book when you need to describe the setting. My best advice, if you ever need to do this, is to keep it as brief as possible, and to pay extra attention to pacing/flow/tempo/whatever-you-want-to-call-it so it doesn't distract, doesn't feel like a chore:

The seventh and eighth graders of Carmen’s church spent one Saturday every winter at Camp Catechism. The campus set its roots in northern Michigan, breathed easterly winds from Lake Huron, and sparked to life as batches of middle schoolers arrived on midnight buses. Cabins formed a bivouac in a birch forest, and one mile to the east lay the lake and the curve of its horizon. It was frozen now, and the limbs of trees wavered slowly under snow, ice eating at chipped, white bark. The chapel the middle schoolers sang in now was a wide A-frame built and reeking of old wood. A low stage headed the room from which stood a pianist, a drummer, and a guitarist, a stage from which Roman Richards would soon discuss Ephesians. The dining hall was a short walk from everywhere and displayed from a wide window the canopy of the burdened forest, ossified waves, and the sun glinting unbearably against it all. Cups of hot chocolate were filled and refilled on a counter at the entrance of the dining hall, and campers drank these violently, abrading their throats as adolescent drunks. Boys and girls separated into two large halls subdivided into tight rooms for each youth group, everything barred entrance from the other sex. As a general rule, phones were banned, as were drugs, candles, and cursing, though the popular boys forged unique methods to circumvent these restrictions, and anyone caught with contraband was witnessed a martyr for a greater sense of vagrancy. Still, most campers lived within their rules, their obligations, just as they always had at church, and any rule breaking (“sin,” as Roman Richards claimed) was relegated quickly to myth, to rumors spread away from pious ears. As such, Carmen and his contemporaries were only loud ostensibly, never committing to a biblical criminal record. This was not to say that anyone at Camp Catechism was reserved—they spilled everything about their lives to their youth group leaders, but no one yet could articulate exactly what they meant, exactly what they felt, and scantily of dreams, ambitions, or desires.

And as all good exposition does, it flows well back into the narrative. The last paragraph above is a bridge between the camp description and a look into Carmen's inner life.

You may also find halfway through your narrative that you need to dump a bunch of character exposition, and you need to do it urgently. My trick for this is to make chapter A flow into the exposition, chapter B be an extended flashback scene, and chapter C to pick up where A left off. For example, if you need to talk about a character's relationship with his father but haven't done that yet in depth, find an easy way to transition into a flashback chapter that does just that. It's an enlarged version of the flashback tool I talked about above!

Now, all of this is what's worked for me, and I write third person distant POV narratives. It sounds like you're writing first person close POV haha. So I don't really have any examples to help with, but the general advice to 1. Keep the pacing/flow/tempo/etc. so exposition doesn't distract, and 2. Write exposition only about what matters to the character, preferably only what matters to the character in that moment, then you should be a-okay. Exposition is only as bad as it distracts, and these are the strategies I've found to distract as little as possible and to use the exposition to meaningfully build my characters as much as possible.

And again, this exposition dump problem doesn't have hard and fast solutions. Every author deals with it in their own way, and I'm sure with practice, you'll find what works best for you and what comes naturally to you, just as I'm always discovering and refining what works for me. The advice in this post is, I think, a solid place to start from :)

[murfpersonalblog]

I think the danger with videos like Nara Smith's is when you have very impressionable viewers who think women like her are aspirational, and that this is what ALL women should be doing & living like & acting like. That's where this guy's analysis on gendered socio-economics are spot on. (ironic AF that it's a white man telling the Black/mixed tradwife with a white husband that she's a domestic slave! 🤣)

My BFF showed me Nara's videos a year or two ago, so we could learn how to make our own bubble gum from scratch--NOT so we could fantasize about becoming slaves to some rich white man who kept us barefoot & pregnant in the kitchen. I don't mind Nara's vids as relaxing DIY tutorials for making junk food--(NEVER trust cooking vids with a skinny cook/chef/etc; it means they don't eat what they cook!) Her aesthetic is a performance (art). There's never any mess in her videos, she stays so clean & doesn't break a sweat and her sleeves never get caught or stained and she cooks soooo frikkin slowly and never makes any mistakes--like, you can tell Nara's vids are edited AF. Nara got cooking down to an ART form that IMITATES domestic life, but doesn't reflect anyone's actual lived experiences, not even her own, LBR. (AND she's a Black Mormon too, lord have mercy, so take Nara's vids with a grain of salt, no pun intended. 🤦)

I'm not saying that this guy's critiques are invalid and it's not that deep~! or anything stupid like that (cooking blogs are harmless art/educational/recreational vids; they're vapid silliness only desperate girls who wanna get married to Prince Charming watch; etc). Cuz he's RIGHT about all the issues with channels like Nara's. It is VERY deep, but people act like it's not deep at all, and that's the problem!

Folks assume/expect what they see online people do in front of a camera to legit reflect real/regular IRL. But it's ALL fake. EVERYONE online is signalling/projecting/selling a specifically curated persona/lifestyle/mindest/aesthetic: from tradwives to gamers to pop culture pundits & podcasters. They're/we're ALL tryna influence the way audiences think & behave & view/understand the world and one's place in it; whether it's revolutionizing/conforming to certain beauty standards; or defying/shilling politico-capitalist marketplaces; or analyzing/consuming media loaded with subliminal messages & social commentary. The DANGER is confusing online with real life; putting misguided social value on internet influencers as THE exemplary aspiration to compare your IRL with, when influencers are just as fictional as characters in a movie--or worse: a COMMERCIAL. And what Nara is selling is far more than just harmless cooking tips, amen absolutely! 💯😔

It's concerning to see so many people in the comments attacking this guy's analysis for all the wrong reasons, completely missing the underlying point of what he's talking about: the socio-economic facade/farce/fantasy/nightmare-fuel that online influencers sell to audiences in totally different tax brackets, who are (sub)consciously comparing and contrasting their IRL to the influencers', and hating themselves for coming up wanting; bending over backwards to reach unrealistically lofty goals of indulgent luxury & frivolous time-wasting; and failing to recognize what's on their screens for what is is: the performance/parody of what the elite think regular/poor people live like, with a bougie veneer on top.

[absolutepokemontrash]

The Brothers and Side Characters Play the Sims

I don’t know what possessed me to make this but WHATEVER. I’ve been playing the Sims since I was a wee little girl, and I’ve seen my fair share of weird Sims stuff that I feel would fit these bozos perfectly.

My Sims have a Functional Family Life Because I Don’t (Lucifer)

God dammit Levi’s obsessed with another game... ugh.

Spends 5 minutes in Create-a-Sim and hops into a starter home.

Lucifer’s the type to start with all the average stuff and then build their stuff up as his sim gets promotions.

It’s just... so peaceful...

...he’s adopting a dog.

Look at his new little virtual family... his sim-kids are self sufficient and getting A’s in school, his Sim spouse MC or Diavolo take your pick loves his Sim-self, his sim-dog-

WAIT NO- THE DOG’S AN ELDER?!

AAAAAAAAAAAAA-

...

He’s fine. It was just a virtual dog. *sniffle*

He’s now spending his free time drinking Demonus and playing the Sims.

What’s a mod? Levi why does your sim have gun?

Behold, My Gorgeous Home... It’s a Box (Mammon)

Mammon, like the rest of the HOL, is mooching off of Levi’s Origin account.

“AW SHIT! This house looks awesome! I’m gonna build it for Sim-me to live in!”

Mammon proceeds to build a box with rooms. Yay...

He just picks the funnest sounding job if he picks any job at all for his Sim. That’s how he ended up making 9 dollars an hour in the criminal career.

Didn’t stop Mammon from buying that solid gold bathroom set from Get Famous... a box with solid gold bathrooms.

His Sim is broke send help-

“Leviiiiiii my sim needs money... the people my sim kidnapped and is forcing to paint aren’t making enough money...” “Ugh... press control shift C and type ‘motherlode’.”

...Levi made a mistake.

“FUCK YEAH! MOTHERLODE!”

His sim’s life is so chaotic, he has a piranha pool that his sim has almost died in twice, the sim is carrying on several torrid love affairs, his sim got struck by lightning, his sim has nearly died in a grilled cheese making accident twice... in the same day.

At least once Sim-Mammon and Sim-MC get married things calm down a little.

Mammon finds out what custom content is and proceeds to download EVERYTHING HE CAN FIND.

And now he’s asking Levi why his computer is running so slow.

Expansion Pack King (Leviathan)

He got into it back when the Sims 2 was new, he’s a veteran fan.

“Bro remember when Agnes Crumplebottom would show up and whack the shit out of your sims if they were flirting?”

“Remember when that witch would show up randomly on the lot you were on if you had Makin’ Magic?”

“Remember when Bella Goth was abducted by aliens and we just... didn’t question it?”

He whines about the Sims4 and how crappy it is but still buys every expansion pack, game pack, and stuff pack.

This boy watches like 40 hours of built tutorials and ends up sobbing over his weird roofs.

“WHY DOESN’T IT LOOK AS NICE AS THE ONE I’M LOOKING AT?! THIS ISN’T FAIR!”

The mod folder is so full istg-

Levi gets custom content for the sole purpose of making his favourite fictional characters.

This is why Henry and the Lord of Shadows are married and Ruri-chan and Sim-Levi are roommates.

Oh my god they were roommates-

Levi also added his brothers to the world and uh... Sim-Mammon died in a tragic pool accident F.

Levi then proceeded to befriend the Grim Reaper.

He’s anxiously awaiting the release of Paralives.

Wait Gameplay? In This Build Simulator? (Satan)

Satan’s here to build and leave. Gameplay who?

Our favourite bundle of rage is a master architect and the amount of followers on the Gallery he has shows it.

He takes up those build shell challenges and always ends up making them look positively perfect.

Asmo’s always using his houses, and Satan often takes requests when he gets bored.

No Mammon, he reserves the right to refuse to build a golden castle for you- YOUR SIM HAS 40 SIMOLEONS-

No mods, no CC, he’s building with what EA gave him.

...and EA gave him debug objects, and he’s not going to explain how to get them.

The one time he did actually play with a family... it was one sim and seven cats.

He tries to play without cheats... and ends up getting frustrated and turns on cheats.

All hail the Pets Expansion Pack.

Custom Content Soap Opera (Asmodeus)

Asmo spends 5 hours in Create a Sim then just... clicks out of the game.

That’s how it goes most of the time, buuuuuut when he gets super invested in a family he’s made, boy howdy is he INVESTED.

Sim A is carrying on an affair with Sim C who’s in love with Sim B who’s married to Sim A but Sim D wants to kill Sim A and C even though they’re the illegitimate child of Sim C-

When Asmo realizes that in the Sims 4 he needs to manufacture all the drama himself and he can’t just sit back with a glass of wine and watch the fireworks, he switches to the Sims 2 and 3.

“...why is this old lady beating up my Sim..?”

He immediately recoils in horror upon seeing how ugly the Sims are pre Sims4.

HE NEEDS TO FIX THIS-

Ah, there we go, perfect. Custom Content to the rescue!

He ends up remaking the entire world just so he doesn’t have to look at weird looking Sims.

Asmo is the only one to have finished a proper Legacy Challenge, but it gets crazy chaotic after gen 3.

“My sim just got abducted by aliens and now he’s pregnant- WHAT?!”

He has about 40 saves and only two he actually plays.

Just a Big Ol’ Happy Family (Beelzebub)

Beel found the game, proceeded to make everyone in create-a-sim to the best of his abilities, and made everyone get along.

That’s why Sim-Lucifer and Sim-Belphie are on a swing set together, they’re friends :D

“Hey Luke do you think you can make this?” “I-is that a cake shaped like a hamburger?” “Yes. Please make.”

He took one look at the cooking options and decided to max out his Sim’s cooking skill to unlock all the options.

Beel proceeded to drool all over his keyboard. Gross...

Boy howdy did he have some crazy dinner suggestions!

Overall, very wholesome Sim-life, except for the time Sim-Levi died because the toilet caught fire, don’t worry, Sim-Beel knows how to make ambrosia.

All is good in the Sim save...

...until Sim-Beel ate pufferfish nigiri and fuckin died-

Wait Did I Not Pause- (Belphie)

Huh, this game looks fine... I’ll play for a little- *SNORE*

Belphie makes some sims, plops them into a starter home, plays for an hour, then falls asleep.

He wakes up five hours later to absolute carnage.

Three sims have died because someone decided to make Mac and Cheese and the oven caught fire, the kids were taken away by social services, and the dog ran away.

“...heheh, holy shit everyone look.”

He doesn’t play often, but when he does, death occurs. He has found out every death method for every game from Sims 2 to 4.

And that INCLUDES the Sims Medieval! You guys remember that game?

Sometimes it’s not intentional, but Belphie got bored with the totally normal life his sims were living and decided to spice it up.

“Why are the ghosts breaking my showers..?”

Help There’s a Bug- (Diavolo)

The Crown Prince started playing when he noticed Lucifer was playing it.

He was immediately obsessed.

Dia mostly plays the Sims Medieval because he likes the feeling of achievement after completing a quest!

“Barbatos... why isn’t my Sim completing their task? The icon won’t show up.” “My lord it appears the game is bugged.” “:(“

No one thought to tell Diavolo that EA doesn’t plan on offering bug support to a game made in like... 2009

This doesn’t matter! Look at how great his kingdom is doing- oh no his hero has the plague-

He plays through the Pirates and Nobles expansion and manages to get the peaceful ending, he’s so proud of himself.

“MC! Look! My Monarch’s sword is permanently on fire and I’m fighting an evil wizard!”

When he does play the other Sims games he’s pretty basic, though, he does a great job at furnishing!

Dia gets crazy sad when his Sims die... he turns off aging.

Builder no. 2 (Barbatos)

Barbie doesn’t have time for this... but when he does, he builds.

No create a sim.

No playing the game as intended.

Just builds.

It’s relaxing, okay? A nice little suburban house he’s never going to play in, maybe a treehouse, maybe a big Hollywood Mansion...

The only time he actually plays the game outside of build mode is when someone needs his help to fix something in-game.

He does download custom content build items if he feels bored by the current selection.

Oh Crap What Am I Doing?! (Simeon)

Help him. Please.

He’s so confused.

“Luke, why is my sim upset?” “He’s hungry, Simeon.” “Oh, how do I fix that?” “...Simeon-”

There’s a toilet in the middle of the living room.

The fridge is facing the wall.

There’s no bathtub or shower.

The house is on fire- there is no god- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-

Okay, once he gets the hang of it he’s sitting pretty. His sims have good jobs, the kids are getting good grades, everything’s fine.

...

But Simeon won’t forget the nightmares.

What Even is This Save? (Solomon)

Solomon’s save is the definition of chaos.

One sim’s a vampire, the other is a spellcaster that really wants to fight the Callientes for some reason, there’s one normal sim that’s always sick for some reason,

It gets weird, confusing, and horrible.

Just how Solomon likes it.

His house makes no sense, like, what even is architecture?

Money cheats are needed because Solomon‘a goal of chaos and confusion is proving to be kind of expensive.

Square up Mortimer Goth, Solomon’s sims are here to steal your weird knight statue that’s worth a shit ton of simoleons for NO REASON.

He joined the scientist career for the sole purpose of getting to the alien planet and kidnapping adding an alien to the household via cheats.

The vampire ended up dying on their wedding day because Solomon forgot that he gave them the sun weakness.

Oh well, the ghost got added to the household! VAMPIRE GHOST!

The Child (Luke)

Before you say Luke’s too young to play the Sims, you should know that I was nine when I first started playing, and I turned out fiiiiiiiiiine.

He’s just happy to be playing.

Look, his sims are gardening :D

Look, two of them are getting married :D

Look, they had a baby :D

Look, his sims are building a rocket ship :D

Look, his sims’s rocket just crashed-

The concept of death hit the little angel right in the face that day.

“*sniffle*... my sims...”

Don’t worry, with tears in his eyes, Luke quit without saving and everything was fine!

Speaking of My Sims, Luke played MySims Sky Heroes and that was when Luke had his first bout of gamer rage.

MC came over to hang out with Solomon and Simeon, and in the distance they could just hear:

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN MY TIME WASN’T FAST ENOUGH TO CONTINUE THE STORY!? I’LL SHOW YOU FAST ENOUGH TIME!”

Okay, maybe Simeon should take the game away... just for a bit... he should take heed not to be bitten by the incredibly angry chihuahua.

Bonus:

MC: Why are our Sims married?

*Insert Boy Here*: Uh... that’s weird... I have no clue why they’re doing that...

[delicrieux]

☆ﾐ 𝚖𝚊𝚔𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚜���𝚢 “𝚘𝚑”

PART 10: BIG DICK IS BACK IN TOWN

y/n is back in brooklyn for the holidays. thinking that a stream will make her feel less homesick for cali, she starts working on her famously titled hentai.free.srv. what was supposed to be a relaxing stream turns into a special delivery about two hours in.

─── corpse husband x reader ─── soc. media + written fiction! ─── word count: 2.2k ─── ❥ req: Here's one... You know those apps for delivery like Domino's or whatnot... What if reader is streaming Among Us with Corpse, and reader mentions they're hungry and Corpse offers to order them food, and readers like no no it's fine... Then there's delivery at the door (Corpse ordered beforehand) 

author’s note: fucky format is also back in town baby!!! also if you find any mistakes - no u didnt <3 thank u everyone for enjoying this story sm i literally cant believe how feral yall going strawberry cow was a nuclear explosion im still recovering tbh. got an ask a while ago and decided to incorporate it into myso. happy holidays everyone! myso will continue on monday!

ultimate masterlist.  ҉  myso masterlist   ҉   previous.  ҉   next.

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Indeed, being soft on any social media platform was the biggest disgrace and needed to be eliminated post haste. Moreover, it was a slippery slope - once you start flooding your timeline with cute imagery and heart emojis, what will stop you from posting inspirational Facebook quotes? Disgusting. If Rae were here, she would chide you (not you thinking about her as if she’s dead or something). For once in your life, you feel like you deserve it. 

Alas, you hope this little chaos you’ve caused is enough to throw everyone off. The stans, especially. You know the hashtags, you’ve seen ARMY scourging for info online with the same fervor and ruthlessness 1 Direction fans hacked airport security cameras just to spy on the boys. If you had any dirty secrets online, they are out to the public now - thankfully, besides the Harry Styles stan account (with edits and all), you have nothing. Though, now that you think about it, exposed nudes would have been better than your Punk!Harry edit receiving almost a million views. God, your life’s a fucking mess.

Your fans aren’t the only ones out for info - you, too, are trying to decipher Rae’s message. Code: Barbecue Sauce. The two of you had come up with it roughly two years ago, around the same time when you promised that if you didn’t find significant others by the time you’re 40, you’ll just marry each other. It was one of the many rules found in your friendship codex. Barbecue Sauce signifies information - an exchange of information. And depending on how it ends or begins (”So I’m sitting there” alludes to Rae, “On my titties” alludes to you), secret data on that person is given away, usually free of charge. 

But why? And to whom did Rae give away what? You had pestered her mercilessly and even sent some voice messages where you were crying. You were only crying because of a video of a grandpa smiling you saw on TikTok, but you are a snake, and so you put those tears to good use. If streaming doesn’t work out, you’ll just become an actress. Hollywood would love you. Your PR firm sure as fuck wouldn’t, though.

Rae was having none of it. She said you’ll figure it out eventually. Told you to channel your superior puzzle skills. You were quick to remind her that you can barely count to ten without having an aneurysm. Oddly serious, she admitted that she worries for you sometimes. Why only sometimes?! you demanded. She merely sighed. uttering under her breath something that sounded closely to “Boke.”

You leave her for barely a week and she’s already neck deep in the gay volleyball anime, hoodie and cardboard cutout and everything. Your life is falling apart.

But Brooklyn is nice. It had snowed when you stepped off of the plane. Thousands of snowflakes sprinkling into your hair, dotting your cheeks and nose. You missed this sight back in Cali. You missed your parents, too. 

Home cooked meals, old sweaters, your old room and about 40GB worth of old high school pictures on your computer. You went through them all one night. Some were stomach churning, cringe inducing nightmares. You were especially fond of those. Texted some of your friends that were still in Brooklyn, met up, decided to bake. Bad idea, Rae was the resident chef back in Cali. Besides laughing till your stomach hurt, and almost burning down your kitchen, nothing all that significant happened. Somewhere down the line, at about 3 am, half-way through a cheesy rom-com you had the overwhelming urge to text Corpse.

That’s where the problems really started. God, you missed California, missed being in the same timezone with a guy you hadn’t even met yet, how embarrassing is that?! You missed skating around and taking pictures of the beach in the setting sun, sending it to him, silently wishing he was with you to admire the view. 

You really want to call him. And to hang out with him. But for some reason, the thought of that springs up immediate anxiety and you shy away from asking. Him sending you cute good morning texts doesn’t help, either. Maybe it’s better he doesn’t know that you’re a blushing, stuttering mess each time you read “baby”. 

Late evening. Your stream is already set up, people are slowly trickling in and you greet them with a grin and a soft “Hello! Hi hi!”. You did your best to make your room a perfectly chaotic backdrop - led lights, an embarrassing amount of anime merch and plushies. You always try to balance out your weeb side by dressing hot as fuck for your streams - today’s inspiration just so happens to be egirls. Mostly because you watched one too many egirl make-up tutorials on TikTok, and also because you’ve been listening to Corpse’s song all day.

Yeah, no, who are you kidding, you dressed up this way because you were hoping Corpse was watching your stream. You didn’t forget your cat headphones, either. You know he likes them. You want to make him suffer. Perhaps then, finally, he will ask you out, so you wouldn’t have to.

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“I feel like,” You start when you put away your phone, staring idly at the chat, “I feel like I need a new name for you guys. Calling you guys after two years of streaming is just... weird, no? I also don’t respect men so I don’t want to call you guys. Like, so many creator’s have, like, a name for their fans. Uhm, Cody Ko has the chodesters, Kurtis Conner has, uh, folks? Kurtis Town? Citizens! Markiplier has mommy issues--” You can’t help snorting, “So, I’ve been, like, thinking - I know, shocking! - so I was thinking I’m gonna name you cockroaches. Because you’re grimy little shits impossible to kill. And also then I can use the legendary Minaj meme ROACHES!”

Your stream enthusiastically echoes ROACHES, making the chat swim. Yes, if anyone would enjoy such a name, it would be your audience. You’re as equally proud as you are disturbed.

“Well, anyway.” Leaning back into your chair, you throw your arms out with a bright grin, “Big dick is back in town, baby! If you noticed the backdrops different, it’s cuz I’m in Brooklyn now. Don’t ask me when I will return to Always Sunny, I don’t plan that far ahead.”

While Minecraft boots up, you decide to answer a few questions.

r u dating sykkuno?

You want to smack your head into the keyboard, but as it is, you can’t exactly afford a new one, so you refrain, “No, Sykkuno and I are not dating, we are just good friends. Uhm, I’m not sure how much I’ll have to repeat this, but, we really aren’t, so if the roaches could chill - Oh my God, that sounds so stupid, I love it - uh, yeah, if the roaches could chill that’d be great.”

the roaches lmao sounds like we’re a sports team

“Oh shit, yeah it does, uh-- maybe I can make like, jerseys or something. That’d be cool, I think.”

how disappointed are your parents with the way your life turned out?

“My parents are actually not disappointed at all!” You say with a cute little smile, “Uhm, they’re both really proud, actually. They’re glad I found something I love doing and made a job outta it. Dad finds my Youtube videos endearing. Yes, they watch pretty much all of my videos, unless I explicitly tell them not to. And yeah, with all the fucks and thirsting for anime characters. Uhm, it was very embarrassing at first, but I mean, after a while, shame just...doesn’t exist anymore, I guess? Funny thing about my parents, actually, when they watch my videos-” You eye catches a comment, “Oh! No, they only watch my Youtube videos. They don’t know how to use Twitter, thank God. Uhm, anyway-- when they hear a name they don’t know, like, I dunno, Dabi, or something, they google--” You’re grinning by now, eyes crinkling, giggling softly, “--who that is, and buy me like, merch and stuff. It’s really cute. 

can i be adopted by ur parents plz

will you and corpse ever collab?!

You were about to answer, though the man of the hour himself decides to do it for you.

Corpse_Husband: yes.

Okay, not to say your heart skipped a beat, but it totally did. With a pleased smile, you nod, like one of those bobble head toys sold at the dollar store. The motion is oddly reminiscent of Sykkuno’s own nod. Perhaps you had picked it up from him. The chat seems to notice.

pack it up, sykkuno

More questions pile about this mysterious collab you and Corpse are planning. Yeah, you’d like to hear more about it, too, since he single highhandedly decided one was happening right now. Corpse remains silent. Fine, keep your secrets. 

“Okay, guys, oh, I mean, roaches, Oh my God--” You’re covering your mouth, giggling, “-calling all roaches, calling all roaches, calm down. Everyone grab a snack and a blanket I’m turning up the music volume so we can all chill. Entering chill zone. Entering chill zone. Roaches, prepare.”

we are prepared

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An hour or so passes and you grow hungry. It shows with the amount of cakes you had baked in your server. Currently, you find yourself throwing eggs at the wall of one of the renovated houses, your face scrunched in concentration and slight frustration. 24 of the 50 eggs have been wasted. “What’s a girl gotta do to get some chicks around here?” you had uttered under your breath, until, finally, a screech - the egg finally spawns a mob. Your mouth falls open, “Aww, look!” You approach it, so small, walking in zigzags beside you, “It’s a baby chicken! Die, bitch.” The baby chicken is no more as you swing your bedazzled (you have mods) diamond sword. You’re cackling by the time the dust settles.

y/n is a child murderer

“Roaches,” You address your fan-base, spurring another fit of laughter - you can’t get over the name, “I think I’m like, forgetting that eating in Minecraft won’t actually make less hungry in real life.”

take a break and go eat queen <3

“Fuck no, we starve and die like men. Now I actually really need another chicken.”

Another twenty minutes trickle by and you’re trying to lure back a panda from the jungle when there’s a knock on your bedroom’s door. Whipping your head to the side, you slide down your headphones. At the same time, your mom pokes her head through the ajar door, “MOM!” You scream, “Get OUT of my room I’m playing Minecraft!” But your yell has no actual bite to it, as you don’t manage to hide your smile. Your mom laughs, doing some sort of sign language and motioning for you to follow her with her head. That or it’s some sort of performative dance. 

“I’m live right now,” You tell her, pointing at your screen. She knows this already, though, “do you want to say hi?” 

The roaches spam the chat with friendly hellos. You mom, quite impatient now, waves you over. 

“Sorry, roaches, mom needs something. Be back in a bit!”

Stopping the stream, you rush out of your seat and pleased she slinks into the hallway. “What’s this about?”

“Your pizza came.”

“My what now?” You echo, confused.

“Domino’s. You ordered pizza?”

“What? No? I was busy with the stream, I never--”

Thankfully, you had managed to grab your phone from your room before you exited. You almost choke on spit once you read the messages.

✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼

✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼

You decide that it’ll be impossible to stream after experiencing what you had just experienced. You tweet out a quick apology to the roaches (God, that fucking name) and say that you had a breakdown but you’re okay. That is as a close to the truth as you managed to muster. It’s a sad sight, chewing and crying; your mom winced when she saw your state - disheveled hair and rundown eyeliner and everything. “D’aww,” She had muttered, caressing the top of your head, “don’t cry my little raccoon.”

If anyone was ever to ask you where did your chaotic nature come from, you’d answer with my mom. To make yourself feel better, you took a selfie - duck face and peace sign and the horrible 2000′s angle. Sent it to Rae. 

looking hot, her message read. 

thanks, was all you replied with.

You couldn’t just leave things as they were. Once you calmed down, you wanted to text Corpse, but how would you follow up the ungodly caps lock and screeching? Impossible. An idea sprung to mind, one that was brave. Taking the first step.

Instead of sending a text, you sent a voice memo.

“Thank you for the pizza, it was delicious.”

You voice still sounded a bit raspy. His reply was instant. Your heart skipped a beat. He sent a voice memo back.

“Glad you liked it, baby.”

He was going to be the death of you.

✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼

tags (in italics is those i couldn’t tag! make sure all’s ok w your settings!) : @littlebabysandboxburritos - @fairywriter-oracle - @tsukishimawh0re - @ofstarsanddreams - @bbecc-a - @annshit - @leahh19 - @letsloveimagines - @bellomi-clarke - @wineandionysus - @guiltydols - @onephootinfrontoftheother - @liamakorn - @thirstyfangirl - @lilysdaydreams - @pan-ini - @mxqicshxp - @tanchosanke - @yoshinorecommends - @flightsandfantasy - @liljennyx3 - @slashersdream - @unknown-and-invisible - @sinister-sleep - @fivedicksinatrenchcoat - @mercury–moon - @peterparkerspjsuit - @unstableye - @simonsbluee - @shinyshimaagain - @ppopty - @siriuslystupid - @crapimahuman - @ofthedewthesunlight - @mythicalamphitrite - @artsyally - @corpsesimpp - @corpsewhitetee - @corpse-husbandsimp - @hyp-oh-critical - @roses-and-grasses - @rhyrhy462 - @sparklylandflaplawyer - @charbkgo - @airwaveee - @creativedogs - @kaitlyn2907 - @loxbbg - @afuckingunicornn - @fleurmoon - @yeolliedokai - @truly-dionysus - @multi-fandom-central707

more tags are in the comments bcs tumblr only allows me to tag 50 people max 💙

[freelyglitterykryptonite]

An extensive list of non-problematic youtubers

With the absolute crap-show that is the youtube community right now, I though I might share some of the least problematic creators on the site right now, pulled right from my subscriber list Here you go;

Glam and Gore Does Beauty and SFX makeup, She has two adorable dogs and she’s just the cutest

Bailey Sarian Does Murder Mystery and Makeup Mondays where she talks about true crime stories and does her makeup

IAMTRAEH Does Natural hair horror stories and tutorials for Natural hair

Snitchery Does Tutorials on how to change up your look

SusieJTodd does Fashion videos on a plus sized body

Bernadette Banner a Vintage fashion youtuber with a voice of liquid gold

TT Bret mainly a cosplayer who is more active on Tumblr and Tik Tok but does occasionally post youtube videos

Safiya Nygaard Does bad makeup science and travel videos. She’s absolutely adorable and down to earth

Dollightful a Korean Based artist who repaints dolls into her own characters, She did all of Eevies evolutions

Sideways Delves into music theory and motifs in modern culture.

Imbrandonfarris just absolutely hilarious with the most adorable little girl. He eats bugs sometimes

Emmymadeinjapan Makes vintage recipes, tests vintage cooking tools, and Viral internet foods in a respectful and educated manner

AnthonyPadilla Yes that one, His activism and “I spent a day with” Series is highly informative and he always approaches his topics with the utmost of respect and curiosity. (he’s also dating Glam and Gore from earlier and their relationship is absolutely adorable)

NikkieTutorials one of the few Big beauty youtubers who isn’t stupid Shady I love her so much

Royalty Soaps She makes and sells handmade soaps and she’s adorable

TheEpicNate315 shockingly a video game youtuber, He makes informative videos about Skyrim and Fallout 4 Lore

Overly Sarcastic Productions Covers History, Literary tropes, and Mythology In a fun animated medium

You Suck At Cooking is what would happen if How to basic had a voiceover

Enchanterium another doll repaint artist

Jennelle Eliana A travel Vlogger who lives out of her van with her snake. Very informative

Deligracy Is a Sims youtuber. The Sims Community is pretty unproblematic you can get really good content with none of the drama on this side of youtube

ThreadBanger cusses a lot but Todd and Corinne have one of the healthiest relationships on the platform. Todd also almost died a year ago and he’s back and better than ever

Beautyklove If anyone did those no heat curl tutorials back in like 2012 you know who she is. She still makes hair related content

MyFroggyStuff More doll art tutorials but this time they focus more on the dollhouse and smaller parts of a house awesome if you have kids who like dolls and crafting

Kristen Ryan Broadway fans rejoice! Kristen makes karaoke versions of popular songs but will sing every other part except the one you want to sing! She normally uploads multiple versions of the same songs so you have choices!

coolirpa revamps thrifted clothes and shows you how to do it

Oxhorn Another lore based Bethesda gamer. The gaming community has some wholesome bois I promise

Rachel and Jun a Japan based married couple who talk about their life in japan and how they make their interracial relationship work

RRcherrypie I guess they would fall under ASMR youtuber but I just find the little toys they mess with really interesting

ellie Nicole a Beauty Vlogger who occasionally covers natural hair and her skincare routines

Mo Mo O'Brien a cosplayer and Larper who attends renaissance festivals among other things. Is possibly the cutest person on this planet?

호주사라 HojuSara Australian youtuber based In South Korea, She does Korean based vlogs.

Maven of the Eventide Covers Vampire lore in modern fiction and reviews vampire movies

Spill, the only tea channel you will find on this list. Lays out the facts and lets you come to your own conclusion in a respectful manner,

Tristan Paredes is a vocal coach you can actually book online lessons for. Hes back baby

Mikaela Long, Does Beauty? Among other things

Philip DeFranco does daily news stories and is honestly one of the only ways I can consume the news without it feeling like its piling on top of me If there are any more that you guys can think of please reblog with your additions! 

[luxlightly]

Ok I was originally not going to post this because it's A Lot of headcanon for an improv video game comedy series and just send it to one person but they never responded and I'm attention starved. So here's my huge, Bubby centric, monster of a headcanon that ties the whole series together. Mostly under a cut because it's A Lot. (written in one sitting on my phone so excuse the multiple changes in tense and typos)

So the big sort of thing is that Bubby caused the resonance cascade. He sabotaged the computers. He just meant for it to be a distraction to escape black mesa but Benry's involvement and the chaotic element of the Player Character interacting with him caused everything to go to hell fast. Also Benry and Bubby are sort of brothers.

Going backwards to explain:

So some of this really stretches the canon because it's mixing a "it's a real world" au and "it's still a video game" au kind of ideas. 

Basically the world of the video game exists sort of as a parallel dimension within the game's code. The G-man exists kind of outside of the rules, able to control more or less the code or console. He's kind of the Mastermind behind black Mesa as a whole who exists outside the game's code to a sort of in between layer (in those time stop moments) where he can only be seen by those who are also in some way connected to the Real World through either direct connection to the Player or sufficient connection to the console code. His reach is in ways limited because of this and he cannot easily interact with the game world characters. He uses Black Mesa as a way to use the science of their word to try to create new things from the code or otherwise more precisely control it.

Which is where Bubby comes in. Basically, black Mesa took the basic code for the security officer Barney and tried to create new copies with connections to the code they could use. However it was pretty much a complete failure. Only two of the attempts even survived to maturity with any kind of personally intact, but they weren't right. Trying to connect them with the code like that broke them in certain ways. On creation, the scientists asked them their names to try to get them to access their own files to find the name, but neither could, it came out garbled. So instead they went by the names they more or less gave themselves. 

Bubby is able to connect to the console commands specifically to set objects and characters on fire(among some others in small amounts that are far less well controlled), but he can't understand that's what it is. It's just psychokinesis to him. And he's not good at controlling it, especially when he was younger. He's also scrawny, has several phobias, and is overall much more suited to academic pursuits than being any kind of soldier for them. It also causes him to glitch at times('here i come, Gordon! Here I come, Gordon! Here I come, Gordon!). His code is more or less like a badly implemented mod that tried to unlock god admin mode but failed and now doesn't quite fit back in with the original code right.

They kept him as a scientist at black Mesa mostly to keep him under surveillance. He knows this. He doesn't know anything about the code or anything, but he knows he was made there etc etc. He spent most of his time just keeping the other scientists afraid of him and his spontaneous combustion and studying as much as he could. He'd never been outside. He wasn't allowed to leave. He'd never really cared to. 

Until (and this was largely inspired by the '30 something Coomer and Bubby when Coomer first joined black Mesa by @inkwellstars) a new scientist was hired. Bubby largely ignored him except for trying to scare him away from any annoying attempts and friendship with some showy (if poorly controlled) pyrotechnics. But Coomer was just fascinated and made a terrible pun about his new coworker being 'a real hothead'. Which infuriated Bubby into taking an interest in him. Coomer remained the only person who was unfazed enough by the fire and the shark teeth to not just still hang around, but even tease him, no matter how hard Bubby tried to intimidate him out of it. Eventually, Bubby realized it was the last thing he actually wanted. That this man was the first person who he'd ever had treat him… Like a human being. And for the first time, he considers a world outside black Mesa. And it's somewhere he wants to go. He wants to follow this man when he walks out the sliding lab doors back to a world he'd never been a part of. 

Not that he's pining or anything!! Coomer was a married man, after all!(no way no sir not that). 

 Bubby has a lot of unmanaged anger because he just catches on fire if he gets too frustrated. After a discussion of Coomer's past boxing ambitions, they set up the underground boxing league mostly just as the two of them, letting Bubby actually let off some steam in a metaphorical instead of literal way. He gets his ass handed to him every time but it's nice to not be treated like either the boss' fragile, expensive toy or a living Molotov cocktail. Bubby learns a bit of fighting along the way,to boot. He gets much better at controlling his fire. Coomer picks him up in a "lift off the ground and spin around" bear hug when he manages to set something aflame without setting any part of himself alight first. Bubby somehow feels that was more important to him than the accomplishment itself. Eventually word gets out about the quite literal underground rings they've started up and it becomes a whole league and Bubby takes a more spectator role, contented to play coach to Coomer.

However, Coomer's impressive strength and fortitude aren't only noticed by an admiring(and sightly love struck) Bubby. Black Mesa decides to try, instead of using code to try to create a new entities with connection to the code, to use an existing character, enhance them, and then create copies of them. Coomer became that existing character.

At first it seemed to work perfectly. They had a character able to alter the world at their will(sending Gordon back and forth through time/creating portals), access a super human, nearly godlike state of power(super player feature) and alter the code in a multitude of other ways. They implemented a system of authorization to stop him from accessing these powers without permission from a handler. These PlayCoins could only be gained and used by someone directly connected to the console code or real world. Someone connected to that liminal space between code and reality the g-man exists in. However, trying to create duplicates didn't create a new, equally powerful entity, it just split the power of the original. From there, Coomer's spirit was still too powerful to be completely controlled, so they split him into dozens of clones, dividing up that power until he was within a range they could control. The effect on his psyche was devastating, however. It trapped him into the code of 'tutorial npc' but his response triggers got completely broken so he responds to the wrong things. Before the scripted events of the game in which those triggers are, it didn't affect his day to day behavior, but it did leave him with an inescapable partial awareness of the game itself. As split as he is, he can't understand or remember anything about what it means, it's just a constant disconnect between him and the game's reality. It causes his marriage to fall apart. 

Bubby doesn't know about what happened to Coomer. A lot of his own memories are controlled and tampered with as well. But he feels as though his getting close to Coomer caused his suffering and they end up drifting apart for a long time and Bubby's longing to see the world outside his laboratory home fades alongside their once strong bond.

Until. The other failed test tube character made from the mangled and stripped code of the security officer Barney who was torn out of the code to be twisted to the g man's whims comes to Bubby with an idea. The man who is not a man. Who has no parents and named himself : Benry.

Benry seemed like he should have been perfect. He kept the most physical resemblance to the original Barney, he seemed physically stable. As far as anyone could tell, he was completely connected to the console code. He should be able to control whatever he wanted, but besides the sweet voice and an unnatural fortitude, he seemed to have no remarkable qualities. Also he was all but totally incoherent. Memory, temporal and spacial awareness,and speech function were severely impaired. He often forgot where and when he was('... What happened to your arm?'), got his own memories confused with the memories of the now non-existent Barney ('you and me we used to be friends do you remember i don't know what happened'). Along with an erratic and unpredictable personality. He was considered another of countless failures and given a menial security job, like with Bubby, mostly just to keep an eye on him. Benry and Bubby, despite being practically siblings, aren't close, but do trust each other insomuch as they know the other probably won't outright kill them. 

But Benry was not as unremarkable as he seemed.

And the introduction of a new element would throw everything into chaos: The Player. And, by extension, The Game.

The Player, in this instance, refers to the assumed person who is playing the game in which the characters exist. They are a discrete, unseen, and unmentioned character, who is neither Wayne nor Gordon Freeman. Wayne is the actor playing both Gordon and, in ways The Player, in the same way that Holly is playing the character of Coomer. Gordon is the AI character who exists within the game world. He believes he is in control of his actions and that what he experiences is real. He exists on the same layer of fiction as the other AI such as the character of Coomer.  The Player is whomever, within the fiction of the series, is physically playing The Game.

The Game is the actual scripted, programmed events that were programmed in the "real world" (the Player's real world in which they live and are playing the Game). It represents the events that happen from the time the Player begins the game and when they complete it. The Game represents the overlap between the reality in which the AI exist and The Player's world. Presumably a copy of the original game Half Life. 

As the events of The Game draw nearer, it makes every charterer with a connection to the code antsy. Bubby starts thinking, for the first time in years, about the world outside black Mesa's walls. Thought becomes longing. Longing becomes desperation. A need to escape from here by any means necessary.

Benry approaches him with an idea. They'll sabotage the big test that Dr.Freeman is running. The whole thing will likely explode, causing enough destruction and distraction for them to slip away in the chaos (with Coomer in tow if Bubby could help it). Freeman would almost certainly die but that was a necessary casualty for their freedom. Bubby never liked him anyway. There was just something...off about him. Like a weird double vision he couldn't shake around the man. Like something was both there that shouldn't be and missing that should be. Bubby avoided him. He didn't think he'd ever had a single conversation with him. He agrees.

Benry stops Gordon at the entrance and tries to stall him as long as possible with bogus requests to give Bubby as much time to sabotage the test as possible (which he does by crawling inside the computers, claiming he's fixing a problem). 

However,Gordon is not connected to the console code, but directly to the real world through being controlled by The Player. As the Player triggers the scripted events of The Game, the holes and mangled code the g man and black Mesa have been tampering with start going haywire. Especially as Benry interacts with him directly. His latent connection to the console code starts activating, giving him ability to control himself and the game more and more, but his memory issues and temporal confusion makes him unable to determine what is and isn't real so his code powers start just making it real, beginning to actively break the Game from within. The bogus excuse about a passport (he forgot the word for ID and had to roll with the lie) became a reality and a powerful one. He starts teleporting and clipping through the walls.

Bubby starts the test, unaware of the change. He played along with the passport thing to not blow Benry's story. But by the time he reaches the chamber, it's already a real thing everyone else there had and should have. 

When the cascade starts, though, Bubby is caught off guard. It was just supposed to explode. It wasn't supposed to bridge dimensions and cause this rift. He assumes Gordon did something to cause it to fail so catastrophically. He phases through the window of the observation room (something he didn't even know he could do and likely didn't even realize he was doing and forgot afterwards since he was immediately knocked out) but it's too late to stop it.

Then the events of the Game are in full swing and all the broken code of every character crumbles and results in the "look Gordon! Ropes!" Glitched tutorial Coomer, a Bubby whose setting himself on fire on accident for the first time in years, and a Benry who transcends beyond the confines of his code into an extradimemsional Chimera of sorts who can pass in and out of the liminal G space, become and summon skeleton minions who also can be or not be in that space, able to be seen by anyone or just by someone able to perceive that plane of existence, such as Gordon.

As Coomer destroys his clones, he gets pieces of his power and fragments of memory back. Enough to know that they are clones and that killing them returns his powers to him. Bubby and he quickly rekindle their bond, with the memory tapering being undone.

Bubby is still desperate to leave, trying to get Gordon to go faster by guilting him and saying he wants to go home (though black Mesa is his actual home). However everything just seems to get more and more drawn out and they can never really make progress.

Benry convinces Bubby that Gordon is the reason that they can't leave. Bubby can sense that something is different about Gordon so he believes it. Benry may or may not believe it himself. He may have realized that leading the Player to the end would only end the Game and tried to subvert that path. Or the programmed event of Gordon's ambush might have just pushed them both to it. Impossible to say. 

In any case, Bubby is quickly also detained and put back in his tube.

With enough clones killed, and having accidentally jumped out of the play box and seen that there's nothing physically beyond black Mesa, Coomer becomes aware of and connected to the console code and aware of the "real world". He tries to use Gordon's connection to the Player to get to the real world, though at this point he can only understand it as the world of Gordon's "dreams". When Tommy kills all of the clones, then knocks out Coomer, it causes a full reset and Coomer becomes his full,unshattered self again. He still is limited by his need for authorization through PlayCoins, but he's much more coherent and quickly becomes completely aware of his situation within the Game and starts talking directly to the Player through Gordon at times. 

The rest is history. 

As for some other non directly related things: Tommy is g man's attempt at a more biological connection between the code and the game universe. Tommy is his son and has all the abilities of a g-man but is largely unable to use them and unaware of them due to his young age (comparatively to the immortal g man, 36 is still a child) and his innocence. He is also completely integrated with the game universe with no glitches from the union. Tommy is not aware he's the Gman's son. He thinks it's just some guy who bought him Vin Diesel and the minions. Tommy tends to use his powers entirely accidentally when he does, with the exception of creating Sunkist. In doing so he also surpassed his father's ultimate limit: creating a completely new element to the game without having to gut other code. He created the perfect dog out of completely new content he willed into existence. Unfortunately for G-Man, Tommy is far too pure and goodhearted to be used to any nefarious ends. 

[richfieldbranch]

Mike’s Picks - Week of April 6th

Hello again to all our Richfield Library Patrons. We’re back this week with more suggestions to keep you busy while you're stuck at home. All library programs, outreach, and meeting rooms have been canceled until at least May, so hang in there! The books are all available through Hoopla or Overdrive, you can click the title to access it’s listing, or find all our materials at https://akronlibrary.org/browse/digital.  As always, I miss you, and please send me an email to let me know how you're doing, or if there's anything I can do for you.

Mike Daly, Adult Services Librarian 

mdaly@akronlibrary.org

Crafts:

For all you Richfield Crafters out there missing your monthly crafting fix, I have attached a couple of timely links to help you pass the time during the great quarantine.

Do-it-yourself Covid Masks

The first link was posted by the U. S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams. It's very simple and doesn't require sewing. You can find the video at: 

https://www.wwlp.com/news/health/coronavirus-local-impact/surgeon-general-heres-how-you-can-make-a-cloth-mask-today-in-just-a-few-easy-steps/

NPR also explains how they should be worn, and offers some different options for making them (including one where you just cut up an old t-shirt, no sewing or stapling or anything):

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/03/826996154/coronavirus-faqs-is-a-homemade-mask-effective-and-whats-the-best-way-to-wear-one

This one is what my wife used to make our family's masks. It does require a sewing machine, but the results were quite professional and easy to wear. There are hundreds of online tutorials if you do an internet search for “making Covid masks”. This one is from USA Today:

 https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/2020/04/04/coronavirus-face-mask-tips-how-make-fabric-instructions/2945209001/ 

And finally, Joann Fabric has provided this pattern that does not require elastic or string, but instead has fabric straps:

https://www.joann.com/on/demandware.static/-/Library-Sites-LibraryJoAnnShared/default/dw4148ae36/static/landingpage/assets/MaskInstructions_V2.pdf

Easter Pom-Pom Craft

Here's a couple of simple craft for all ages. They're really easy and the end products are very cute. All you need are scissors, rubber bands, old fabric, and some yarn. For bunnies:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8DYHOSpL50 

and for chicks:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz0o-dBhAKA  

There are many more available on You Tube.

Books:

Non-Fiction

The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West by David McCullough

McCullough tells the story of the settling of the Northwest Territory, at the time a wilderness northwest of the Ohio River containing the future states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. His main focus is on the founding and growth of Marietta, Ohio. Included in the Northwest Ordinance were three remarkable conditions: freedom of religion, free universal education, and most importantly, the

prohibition of slavery. McCullough tells the story through five major characters: Manasseh Cutler, Revolutionary War veteran General Rufus Putnam, Cutler’s son Ephraim; and two other men, one a carpenter turned architect, and the other a physician who became a prominent pioneer in American science. A must read for anyone interested in Ohio history.

Code Name: Lise, the True Story of the Woman Who Became WWII's Most Decorated Spy by Larry Loftis

This book was an exciting read. I had never heard of Odette Sansom or the women of the SOE. In 1942 Odette Sansom, a French woman married to and English man, decides to follow in her war hero father’s footsteps by becoming an SOE agent to aid Britain and her beloved homeland, France. Five failed attempts and one plane crash later, she finally lands in occupied France to begin her mission. It is here that she meets her commanding officer Captain Peter Churchill. Loftis paints a portrait of true courage, patriotism, and love—of two incredibly heroic people who endured unimaginable horrors. He weaves together the touching romance between Odette and Peter and the thrilling cat and mouse game between them and a wily Gestapo agent.

Fiction:

This week I've been rereading some of my favorite books. The titles listed below are an eclectic mix, so everyone should find something to like. They are also long which will help you kill some time while stuck at home.

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

This was my favorite book in high school. Lose yourself in the adventures of Frodo and Gandolf in their epic battle of good versus evil. All three titles, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King are available for down as Ebook or audio on the library website.

The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens 

Although not as well known as Great Expectations or Oliver Twist, this Dickens classic is my favorite. A serial romp through Victorian England, this book is in turns funny, sad, and touching. Don't give up because the 19th Century language is unfamiliar. You will be rewarded if you persevere. 

The Ebook is available through Project Gutenberg: 

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/967/967-h/967-h.htm 

and the audio book is available at LibriVox:

 https://librivox.org/the-life-and-adventures-of-nicholas-nickleby-by/ 

Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

The first and best of Follett's historical novels about the fictional English city of Kingsbridge, it's an Oprah Book Club choice as well. The Pillars of the Earth tells the story of Philip, prior of Kingsbridge, a devout and resourceful monk driven to build the greatest Gothic cathedral the world has known, of Tom, the mason who becomes his architect, and of the beautiful, elusive Lady Aliena. The book tells of the struggle that will turn church against state and brother against brother. The book, as well as the two sequels, A World Without End and A Column of Fire, are available for download as Ebook or Eaudio on the library website.

And finally.................

Monday April 9th is

Fresh Tomato Day

“A tomato may be a fruit, but it is a singular fruit. A savory fruit. A fruit that has ambitions far beyond the ambitions of other fruits.” E. Lockhart

“Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.” Miles Kington

“It's difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato.” Lewis Grizzard

Tuesday April 7h is

National Beer Day

“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” Benjamin Franklin

“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts, and beer.” Abraham Lincoln

“Beer's intellectual. What a shame so many idiots drink it.” Ray Bradbury

Wednesday April 8th is

International Feng Shui Day

“You don't have to believe in Feng Shui for it to work. I just know it brings me money.” Donald Trump

“I once drew a picture of Jack Nicholson in The Shining. But I put it away after a Feng Shui expert told me about the bad vibes” David James

“My view on Feng Shui: don’t put your bed in front of the door because you won’t get in.” Jonas Eriksson

Thursday April 9th is

National Gin and Tonic Day

“The gin and tonic has saved more Englishmen’s lives, and minds, than all the doctors in the Empire.” Winston Churchill

“Of all the gin joints, in all the world she walks into mine.” Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine in Casablanca

“I don't know what reception I'm at, but for God's sake give me a gin and tonic.” Dennis Thatcher, husband of Margaret Thatcher

Friday April 10th is

Global Work from Home Day (Very Appropriate!)

“All happiness depends on courage and work.” Honore de Balzac

“Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

“In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.” Leo Tolstoy

Saturday April 11th is

National Pet Day

“Sometimes losing a pet is more painful than losing a human because in the case of the pet, you were not pretending to love it.” Amy Sedaris

“Pets are humanizing. They remind us we have an obligation and responsibility to preserve and nurture and care for all life.” James Cromwell

“Such short little lives our pets have to spend with us, and they spend most of it waiting for us to come home each day. It is amazing how much love and laughter they bring into our lives and even how much closer we become with each other because of them.” John Grogan

More to come next week!

[thiefking]

major ddlc spoilers ahead, also i don’t know if all of this has been said/theorized before since i’m extremely late to the party here but i have a lot of Thoughts having finally played the game

firstly: i need to explain that every theory i’m about to present relies on the hypothetical game that would have existed if monika wasn’t self-aware

basically, irl the game was always meant to be what it is, but within the canon of the story, the ORIGINAL (fictional/hypothetical) ddlc was a regular dating sim visual novel. in canon, it was monika who changed it into the game we actually end up playing. we get only a glimpse of what the game would have been without her interference after you delete her and restart the game-- the mc no longer calls sayori “annoying” and yuri no longer mentions being into “surreal horror,” etc etc. that hypothetical unaltered version as a full game (henceforth referred to as “original ddlc”) is where most of my “what if”s have been clustering around to the point where i’ve genuinely considered making a fangame or something but instead i’m just gonna chat about it here

topic 1: monika’s route

monika claims she didn’t have a route in the first place. by all means, it seems that way-- you can’t appeal to her with your poems, can’t pick her for anything, etc etc. however, as much as monika is aware that she’s in a game, that doesn’t mean she’s genre-savvy. 

i’d actually say she probably isn’t too much of a video game person in general, and i’m not referring to her 4th wall shattering, i’m saying she probably just likes to play acnl, minecraft and other casual, lighthearted games that don’t have an ending to them and can be played indefinitely, and maybe mario party if her friends come over, yknow? that’s just kinda what she seems like to me

now i ain’t dunking on anyone who only plays that kind of game, mind you, but if monika isn’t herself someone who plays a lot of video games, and you add that together with the fact that she was not immediately sentient (we don’t see her BEFORE she became aware, because the original ddlc is already gone by the time we start playing), the fact that while she’s aware what genre the game is she clearly has minimal idea of how they work or what makes them appealing, and that she has little coding experience and despite being able to alter files/lines she also couldn’t prevent basic game mechanics or predict said mechanics getting in the way, then i think it’s not only possible but very very very likely that she missed something. she missed something big.

monika was supposed to be an unlockable route.

so, y’all remember mysmes? i haven’t played it since it first came out, so mind you my memories are fuzzy here but mysmes also isn’t the focus of this post in the first place, so excuse any technical inaccuracies here but i’m certain that the IMPORTANT parts here, the italicised ones, are correct: 

there was an unlockable "deep story” which served as the true end.

you had to play every route in the game before you could read the deep story (i think you also had to play the three other character routes before you could play 707′s route, but that might be wrong). also, each of the main story routes ended after the uh... the ball thing. the big event they throw? whatever it was, that’s where the story stops for those routes, whereas the deep story continues on past that.

you had to be on 707′s route for the deep story (i’m pretty sure you had to play his entire route and have it be your most recent playthrough to get at it, even if that isn’t the case, the deep story is specifically a continuation of 707′s route)

to be honest i was never a fan of the deep story for several reasons and i never really saw what the appeal of dating 707 was but that’s not important the point is that out of your four dating options, only one of them was considered the “true end”, but you had to do every single route before you could get that ending.

i’m sure you see what i’m getting at here, yeah?

there are a couple of other things, too:

monika tells you which character your poem appeals to most, she’s the one who introduces the game on the steam page (which is also proof she was sentient, at least to a degree, before you played the game), her name means “advisor/counselor”... iunno how many people reading this are savvy to the usual conventions of “games in which dating characters is a thing” but i’ve played a LOT of harvest moon. monika is a prime example of a Special Bachelorette. in harvest moon, Special Marriage Candidates are generally one or more of the following: a character from another game (like, literally-- you have to have a gba gamepak in while playing a ds game to see them), a shopkeeper or tutorial-fairy, characters with extremely elaborate unlocking and/or courting rituals, and characters who don’t even seem to be romanceable (in harvest moon games, romance candidates tend to have hearts next to their sprites that change colour depending on how close you are. generally that’s how you know who you can marry and who you can’t, but some marriage characters actually don’t have visible heart meters!). ... once again you see what i’m getting at right? put her in harvest moon and you bet your ass she’d have an invisible heart meter and an intricate courting ritual

she’s an important character. she’s club prez, she’s your tutorial fairy, she tells you who you’re appealing to. the tropes don’t lie, man, sayori would probably be the most realistic ending but i don’t think i know of a single game where the childhood friend character is the “true end” route-- they’re so easy to romance, they tend to be the route people do their first run and then never end up coming back to. i’m not trying to say anything in particular about this setup/logic, i just know that it exists and it exists a whole lot. if there’s a true end route in the original ddlc, it’s without question monika

by the way, in the corrupted ddlc, you still have to play every character’s route for the true ending. the true end requires you to have obtained all of the character cgs, which you can only do by playing all of the other characters’ routes, or at the very least, courting sayori, resetting and courting natsuki, and then letting monika warp the game, since you’ll end up on yuri’s route during the second act of the game no matter what you do. and what happens when you’ve had a chance to date sayori, natsuki and yuri? you end up on monika’s route. even when monika corrupted the game, there was still inherent logic to it-- all the characters inevitably become interested in mc, and you still can’t reach the true end without doing everyone’s routes.

as much as it would be painful for monika to watch you romance everyone else before you finally got around to her, she could have at least taken solace knowing she was the real ending, had she just been a little better at coding, just a little more genre-savvy...

of course, there are these lines she gives us, so clearly a sentient monika is still a monika that wouldn’t just sit there and wait regardless of if she knew she was the true end:

she says it herself: she’d still force her route, because she’s terrified, and the only one who seems to be aware that she’s in a game, but the really, really sad part is that as hard as she tries to convince you and herself that she doesn’t regret any of what she did, doesn’t feel guilty, doesn’t miss her friends...

she does. she knows she did something terrible, and she didn’t even actually have to do it.

... well, maybe “she didn’t HAVE to do it” is obvious enough for everything she did, but let’s keep in mind here that monika was scared out of her fucking mind, and reasonably so. if you were in her place, if you found out nothing was real, your friends weren’t real, nothing but code... and someone real came along, but no matter what you did, you couldn’t get them to talk to you long enough for you to ask for help... wouldn’t you get desperate too? monika was scared, and panicking, and remember: she knew she was in a game.

uninstalling a game does not a murderer make, right? the npcs, and the player character, they aren’t dead. they’re just code. if you back up your save, they’ll all be there if you download it again-- if you didn’t, they’ll still exist, they’ll just be reset. it doesn’t mean you’ve actively given someone amnesia.

but you still feel guilty over it, huh? even if you need disk space, even if you make a backup, it still kinda feels bad to delete the fictional friends you made.

you feel bad for doing that, and they were fake to you in the first place. monika was part of the game.

this is why it’s so sad to me. she was scared, and she thought she’d never even have a chance to ask for help, because she thought she didn’t have a route. her situation was, from her perspective, utterly hopeless. she felt terrible doing what she did, she misses her friends, but it was the only way to save herself, and being that she knew she was in a game, of course she’d try to rationalize her actions by telling herself her friends weren’t real and it was no different than overriding a save file. if she didn’t tell that to both you and herself, she’d be a murderer. she isn’t a murderer, either-- it really is just code, the problem is the overwhelming guilt that she has to suppress for the sake of her own sanity that she wouldn’t have had to bear in the first place had she been a normal route, or known that she had a route somewhere in the game.

the other characters do seem to have more sentience/free will than monika thought/noticed, but none of them are as Aware as monika-- natsuki shows the most amount of awareness (without being the club prez), having not only noticed that yuri and monika were acting strangely but even writing a note, one that clearly wouldn’t exist in the original ddlc, asking the mc for help. yuri also has several moments of lucidity, both with her own actions/behaviour and that of her clubmates (and by clubmates i mean pretty much just natsuki). like i said before, though, they aren’t as aware as monika, and while sayori (in the first run), yuri and natsuki all seem to realize something is wrong, they also don’t know that they’re in a game. 

monika was very, very alone, even when she was surrounded by her friends. friends that she legitimately cared about and enjoyed spending time with. i wonder whether it would have been better that she were more self-aware, or never was in the first place

topic 2: the true end

so i already talked a lot about how i think monika woulda been the true route, but not about what i think would happen in the true end. i have less to say on this topic both just in general and because i already spent so much fucking time on the first topic, but of course i have Thoughts, i wouldn’t be claiming monika would be the true route if i didn’t have an idea of how said route would work

i’ll take this character-by-character for the sake of clarity and organization

sayori:

so here’s the thing:

monika exaggerated sayori’s depression, yes.

sayori is, understandably, probably the character most people would rather the mc end up with, sure.

... but sayori never told mc she was suffering, not until he happened to catch her in a moment of weakness

not in the original ddlc either-- the mc has a very lukewarm response when she tells him she’s woken up on time for a few days in a row, which he wouldn’t/shouldn’t have had if he had known. it was always part of the game plot for mc to learn about sayori’s depression onscreen

it makes sense sayori would have feelings for him, but it also seems like she doesn’t trust him very much-- in her “bottles of happiness” poem, towards the end she seems to talk about her friends being concerned for her, but she’s shutting it all out because she doesn’t want them to worry. the mc at this point doesn’t know she’s suffering. it seems like she’s had other friends who have actually noticed she was hurting-- whether those friends are the club members or not, iunno-- and that even though she does try to conceal it, she’s aware that they’re aware, y’know? mc had no idea, and seemed incredibly unequipped and unqualified to help sayori

while that sort of thing would be remedied in sayori’s route, he wouldn’t be spending as much time with her on the other girls’ routes... not to mention that dating someone can’t cure your mental illness, but mc seems exactly like the kind of person to think that it can. that’s just my Own Ape Canyon though

what i’m thinking is true end sayori doesn’t end up with anyone, and she’s okay with that. true end sayori is prioritizing herself and learning to deal with things healthily. she’s letting her friends help her, and she’s holding off on romance, because she acknowledges that if she isn’t careful, she might sacrifice her own well-being for her partner’s happiness. 

natsuki:

fun fact: i didn’t know if the buffsuki edit was actually in the game or not for... up until a few days ago. i had no idea if it was from some kind of joke ending, or if it was fanmade. i was pretty disappointed to learn it was the latter i wanted to watch her physically break out of the game with her giant rippling muscles

now while the main topic is the true end, i’d actually first like to discuss what a full natsuki route would be like

i think that natsuki’s route would be furthest from a good end without being a bad end, tbh

i don’t think her route would be a total disaster, mind you, but i don’t think it’d be a happy end. i think you’d end up dating her, which would make it an unhappy end

see the thing about natsuki is: she’s only got a small handful of friends, she’s used to being made fun of, she immediately gets prickly when sayori brings mc in, specifically saying that the mc being male is killing the vibe-- meaning, she probably doesn’t have any male friends... leaving her dad as probably the only man she interacts with

in other words, she avoids men because of her dad

so when mc shows up, is friendly, doesn’t make fun of her, and he’s the only male figure in her life that she feels remotely safe around, it’s no question she’d probably... maybe... develop feelings for him...?

of course! yes, of course, because natsuki is VERY HETEROSEXUAL, and she likes BOYS! this is proof! most boys, she can’t stand em, but this one was nice to her, so of course she’s got a crush on him right?

in case you’re missing my heavy sarcasm, i’m saying natsuki is a lesbian with compulsory heterosexuality issues and due to said issues convinces herself that she’s romantically interested in mc, because he’s the first boy she’s met who hasn’t treated her like shit

hence making the natsuki route a pretty unfortunate one, since like i said i think you really would end up dating her, at least for most of it. maybe the end would be something like her moving away or something leaving the relationship sort of Over without actually having a breakup, i dunno

oh by the way: do you want some evidence for natsuki lesbian? oh there’s plenty but i’m gonna wait a moment for that one. i’m also not gonna go into natsuki’s true route for now, you’ll see why soon

yuri

and by soon

i mean now

i don’t have any thoughts on what yuri’s route would be so we’re gonna go right into discussing the true end

so, here’s a little something:

monika also exaggerated the turbulence in natsuki and yuri’s relationship

once again, in the original ddlc-- the part you can actually see, after you delete monika, the two are actually pretty close! they do butt heads occasionally but in the one instance you get to see in the original ddlc, they made up very quickly

monika also modified a lot of their lines in the Big Argument they have in act 2, which has both of them saying a lot of shit they wouldn’t have even thought, much less say aloud

the reality is, though, that natsuki is actually very fond of yuri

the amy in this poem is two people, depending on how it’s read: natsuki or yuri

when amy is natsuki, it’s a poem about how her own harmless interest in manga causes her to be made fun of or insulted

when amy is yuri, it’s a poem about... well, her self-harm, but a lot of yuri’s traits/interests could apply as well

and when amy is yuri, you can see a lot of information about natsuki and yuri’s relationship in this poem. natsuki doesn’t hate yuri, of course-- remember that this poem is meant to point out how dumb it is to hate someone for one tiny trait when all of their other traits are that of an all-around nice person

first 3 lines of the second verse. just take a real long look at those

here’s another poem!

this is the poem natsuki writes if 2 or less of the poems mc writes in act 1 don’t appeal to her. this makes it fairly clear the “you” in the poem isn’t mc

the “you” is someone, though

yuri.

it’s yuri. the poem is about yuri.

by the way, if all 3 of your poems did appeal to natsuki, the poem she writes is nowhere near as BLATANTLY ROMANTIC as this one is. it most certainly doesn’t say anything about kissing

btw hey did you know that “yuri” also refers to lesbians

once again i think it’s probably obvious what i’m getting at here: the true end for natsuki and yuri is the two of them dating. hell, i’m pretty sure part of the route would involve mc and monika trying to play cupid-- monika is the one who tells you who your poem appeals to, after all, so why wouldn’t she try some matchmaking for her pals?

i imagine they do still have little spats every now and then, sure, but they’d learn to respect each other’s opinions long before they’d start dating, and the fact that they’re both passionate is what makes them work. while their writing styles are almost polar opposites, that just means they have a lot to learn from each other and could balance the other out when they take their style to an extreme that makes it hard to understand what they’re trying to get across, and i’m certain they could make a kickass story together

anyways, that’s all i’ve got to say for now, partly because i spent four fucking hours writing this post and partly because i gotta get back to staring into monika’s eyes. i added the monika after story mod because i cycled through all of her available dialogue in the vanilla game. i just want to be friends with her so bad

[naazyalensky]

I guess I will discuss it.

I know often things that are posted by someone outside one’s rnm circle are treated as hostile but this isn’t an attack on the takes I’m seeing, just one I’m not seeing brought up: the infinite potential for good in matrimony.

I think it’s really uncomfortable that a relationship in which partners choose marriage is being argued as inherently reductive to a woman’s complexity. Choice is key, and has been overlooked. I think it’s uncomfortable that we leapt past the possibility of healthy so quickly that we’re only discussing the downsides to romantic partnerships and not the way vulnerability nurtured into familiarity, confidence, and trust can lead to the desire to pledge one’s devotion forever. Whether forever comes or goes.

And that’s not for everybody. Some women will never want to be married to their partners. Some don’t desire romance or partners. There’s a path for every woman and they do not all run parallel.

In this case we’re discussing fictional characters, but choice is still a key component. The choosing of the thing is what matters. People in healthy relationships do not have to lose parts of themselves. With luck and support, if you do, you’ll find those pieces again. Liz as a bride is no less a scientist. Maria as a wife is no less a businesswoman. Neither is either any less one single plank in their identity’s foundation. Women in love are, ideally, no less individuals. Women who function in a unit don’t cease to exist on their own.

There’s a lot that can be said here, but I’m not arguing a thesis, I’m just pointing out that this event isn’t about what all women will do. Or even placing Liz and/or Maria on one set path. It’s about the what-ifs around marriage for these particular characters and pairings. Why them? Personal preference. but none of us needs an event to explore the hypothetical.

The prompts are general. Think of all the ground they can cover.

Do they want to get married? Do they want all the bells and whistles or just the promise and some cake? Somewhere in the middle? Somewhere outside it all? Who would they want present when they take their vows? How would they change as individuals in marriage? What steps would they take to hold onto themselves? How tight a grip would they need? Do they stay married? Are they friends if they divorce? 

Have they missed each other for decades before they get their shot? Do they live together before getting married? How do they honeymoon? Do they choose not to? Where do they compromise? Where are they indulged? How do they resolve fights? What are their goals outside of a partner and how does their partner respect this? How do they make time for one another when the honeymoon phase slips into normalcy? 

Do they want kids? Do they not? Do they adopt? How do their parenting styles differ? How do they match? Do they marry before or after kids? Do they have kids and never marry? How would they fare on a family road trip? 

What do they learn about each other after they believe they know everything? What do they learn about themselves? How do they show their affection in the small moments? How would they make a grand gesture? How do they propose? How long is the engagement? Where do they fit into their community as individuals? How does the community regard them as a couple? 

How does a typical day of married life play out? How is the wedding planned? How well does the wedding go according to plan? Is there a plan? How do they get on with their in-laws? How does the in-law relationship shift over time and how does that impact the marriage? Which parts of the relationship are a well-oiled machine? Which parts need work? 

What do they score on a ‘before you get married’ quiz for fun on their ten year anniversary? How do they score on it the night before the wedding? What are their marriage memes? Does one leave for work before the other and leave notes on their windshield? Do they high five after successfully following a youtube tutorial on the third attempt? 

What family traditions do they carry on? What traditions do they create? What does their home look like? What does their life look like? What excites them most about coming home to the other? How to they value, express, and maintain intimacy?

There are just so many facets to explore and this is all off the top of my head. It’s hardly all-encompassing, and I’ve quite possibly repeated myself. Marriage and weddings and women who choose that for themselves by offering and/or accepting a proposal—or hey, there’s a whole subsection I missed: exploring the challenges and triumphs of couples who meet and marry nearly on the spot—these things, they do not have to be limiting. They do not have to be answered in any particular way but the one that you enjoy if you enjoy it. They do not have to follow the ugly tropes between men and women played out by rote in media. 

Re: the event. Does commitment require marriage? Not one bit. National Wife Appreciation Day just happened to fall when there were no other events posted and that became the basis for exploring more about Liz and Maria (and Max and Michael) by holding them up to any and all of the questions above. Plus the many many many I missed. 

Intimate and loving relationships thriving is a fun as hell playground. Difficult (not synonymous with toxic) relationships that have the work put into become healthy are also fun as hell. Now this isn’t fun or interesting to everyone, but it’s, again, not inherently stale or limiting. 

The journey is about what you see in it, so if it don’t apply let it fly, but it’s misogyny plain and simple to write women off as lesser when taking on the roles of brides and wives alongside all their others, like sister, daughter, friend, biomedical engineer, bar owner, etc. etc. as though one cancels out the others.

[friendsof3villages]

Play Diary Part 1 (Opening, Up to Spr. 14, Y1)

To sorta kinda revive this blog, start playing the game again from the start, and get in some much needed writing practice, I decided to finally begin a female file on the English version. I’ll be writing a play diary entries and also some entries of random helpful (I hope!) tidbits and mini columns from the Japanese Famitsu guide. 

I decided to impose a few rules on myself for this time around:

Veteran mode! Sure, I’m using the Miracle trait, which gives me a very unfair advantage, but... Let’s drain that stamina and that money, mmmkay? 

No preconceived ideas about whom to marry! None of that. No leaning toward one character over another sorry Yuzuki and Ludus. 

Go easy on the gifts. I want my character to cultivate friendships based on daily conversation, festival participation, and the occasional gift.

Can you believe that this’ll be my...4th(?) time going through the game, and I’ve never made a pet a Furmiliar? And I have still never once played online?! I used to do online co-op frequently in the two previous games, but lately I’ve developed a weird aversion to doing any kind of online competition or co-op... I need to do BOTH those things this time around.

With all that said, here’s my protagonist:

(Man, I miss Miiverse...)

I gave her the name of and based her appearance on my mental depiction of what I wanted my MC to look like in my latest playthrough of Mystic Messenger. Lately I’ve had this weird thing about naming my characters after fruit, pastries, flowers, gemstones, or a combination of two of the previously listed things. I do this in Fire Emblem Heroes, too. (And now you know the only two mobile games I play, bahaha.)

Hence, we have Berry, who should have strawberry-colored hair, so...well, close enough.

I had to consult the calendar in my game guide to come up with a birthday that wouldn't conflict with a festival or another's birthday. I wanna be unique! (The best calendar is on pages 334 and 335, by the way.) I finally decided upon Winter 7. (And yes, playing the English version while relying on a Japanese guidebook could be interesting.)

I’ve noticed this before but I don’t think I’ve mentioned it... While we don’t see Marlena’s face in the flashback, she appears to look exactly the same now as she did back then! She’s aged very gracefully.

Anyway, you know the drill: the family’s moving, Berry wants instead to move out and start her own farm, Daryl doesn’t think she can do it, blah blah. And, clearly, Berry wins the argument, hehe.

Don’t worry, Dad; it’s not like I’ve never played this game before. I’m a VETERAN, y’know. Starting with the amount of money I have will be a huge help. Thanks for the awesome allowance! (14.6 million gold, aww yeah!)

So off Berry goes, she meets Uncle Frank, eats pizza with him...

Ooh, I love that nice long stamina bar...

The next day we’re introduced to Westown and its residents. Here’s a lovely screenshot from a previous playthrough...

Westown is lucky that it has a reliable water source; a lot of the western US (on which Westown is clearly based) isn't so lucky. There are a lot of dams and reservoirs to collect water to make sure that there will be enough for humans and livestock. (I could also go into a tangent about how the buffalo in this game is technically an Asian water buffalo and not the very different-looking American buffalo (bison) native to North America, but, hey. I won’t. Not this time anyway, haha. It’s  a fictional world, so they’re allowed a lot of slack.)

Hello, Wayne! I’m genuinely impressed that he remembers Berry’s name just from his conversations about her with Frank. And, yeah, he gets a slight head start in the affection dept., as he’s the first bachelor we meet. But since Ford will come along in a couple of days, he doesn’t get much of an advantage.

Also, have I ever mentioned how much I love Lisette’s design? It reminds me of traditional Mexican dress. She’s just missing a rebozo (shawl), and one with a delicate flower pattern woven or embroidered into it would perfectly suit her.

Finally, the time came to name my farm. I was sleepy and giddy and ended up calling it...

Yup, it’s not just any farm. It’s THE farm. Heh heh.

Thanks for telling me that's a bed, uncle. I would have never figured out on my own that the wooden frame with a mattress, blanket (that looks stitched together from a number of pillowslips or something) and pillow is a bed. So, thanks.

Spring 3, Year 1

FINALLY, the opening and tutorial were over so I could at last play the game! 

Here’s what I did on my very first day: planted the crops Uncle Frank gave me and bought some more seeds:

Only 5 bags of radish seeds, uncle? Oh well, I’ve got more than enough money to buy more.

I chopped down a whole tree:

That took forever.

And managed to max out Westown’s E status. On the first day. Niiiiiiiice. 

I also expanded my bag (twice), bought and planted grass seeds, bought spicy fodder and chicken feed, plus treats and the tools I need for the animals,and then bought a chicken (Banana) and a cow (Kale). I now gather eggs from Banana and milk Kale every day. Make of that what you will.

Spring 4-14, Year 1

I’m not going to ship much, at least not yet. I’ve shipped 10 radishes as a requirement to raise Westown to D rank. Everything else has gone into storage. I’ve also met Berry’s second potential future husband: Ford.

I was able to purchase a fishing rod, so now I spend a lot of time fishing. All my crops, milk, eggs, fish, and stuff I’ve foraged are stowed safely away in storage for when/if I need them. I love hoarding.

So, my next entry will probably be my introduction to Lulukoko and the rest of Spring!

[niialabellavita]

The three Icons  I would like to watch during Quarantine.

The three Icons  I would like to watch during Quarantine.  

Morticia Addams 

Morticia Addams of course is a fictional character from The Addams family TV and film series. She was created by cartoonist Charlie Addams and was based on his first wife, Barbara Jean Day. Legend. 

Morticia is described as a witch who is very slim, has extremely pale skin, and long straight black hair. She commonly wears black to match her shiny hair. According to Wednesday, her disturbed daughter, Morticia applies baking powder to her face instead of actual makeup. She frequently enjoys cutting the buds off of roses, which she discards (keeping only the stems), likes cutting out paper dolls with three heads and making sweaters with three arms, and cooking unusual concoctions for her husband.

In 2009, she was included in Yahoo!'s Top 10 TV Moms from Six Decades of Television and AOL named her one of the 100 Most Memorable Female TV Characters.

I wish I could watch Morticia right now on her perfectly curated self help/camgirl Twitch account. She’d for sure be on Twitch. Her absence of fear but dark passion during this un-settling time would be illuminating. That pinch of morbid humor personally feels even more needed to stay sane. I would also very much like to watch her gardening suggestions, beauty tutorials, at home craft projects, and self made mask ideas. 

She adored her husband Gomez, as deeply as he did for her and I would pay extra for some late night sex videos and relationship tips from the both of them. Her loyalty to her family goes beyond sanity and I love her for it. I would also love to watch her feed her personal pet Cleopatra, a fictitious breed of carnivorous plant called an African Strangler, to which she feeds hamburgers and other various meat. Or watch her strumming a Japanese shamisen, of course she was musically inclined duh-She’s perfect. 

 She seems to have a healthy but freaky sex life and her kids seem like they could survive anything. I’m not a parent but I’m pretty sure she’d have some great suggestions on how to keep your kids alive without them killing you vlogs.  Oh Morticia, how can I be as strong as you? What is in your drink? Her overall aloof outlook and dislike for happy social gatherings makes her a role model for us all right now. Stay creepy and freaky out there. 

2. Christopher Walken. 

Christopher Walken is an American actor, singer, comedian, director, producer, screenwriter, and dancer, who has appeared in more than 100 films and television programs that I’m not going to list. I’ll give you just a few fun facts. He was Born in Astoria, New York. When he was 15, a girlfriend showed him a photo of Elvis Presley which inspired  him to change his hairstyle to imitate Presley and he has not changed it since. As a teenager, he worked as a lion tamer in a circus. He attended  Hofstra University, but dropped out after one year, having gotten a role in an off Broadway revival alongside Liza Minnelli! Wild!

He initially trained as a dancer at the Washington Dance Studio before moving on to acting. He prefers to be known informally as Chris instead of Christopher. Walken won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in Michael Cimino’s 1978 film THE DEER HUNTER.  In 1992, Walken appeared in Madonna’s controversial coffee table book SEX and the music video for her hit single, "Bad Girl" (directed by David Fincher) He’s been married forever with no children.  The quiet couple have a cat named Bowtie, and their previous cat was named Flapjack. They live in Connecticut. 

Lastly, Walken was one of the last people to see actress Natalie Wood alive before her drowning on November 29, 1981, while on a weekend boating trip near Catalina Island.

I would gladly pay for his Patreon account where I assume all proceeds go to helping animals and young artists during this critical time. 

Watching him make pancakes for his wife… Talk about his role in Batman Returns....Maybe even a little dancing around his garden would lift my spirits and boredom. 

His voice is as soothing as it is funny... it makes me frustrated and giddy with his long pauses yet, I’m waiting on every word. I would like him to read short stories and have his cat awkwardly enter the frame to block the camera.  In a time of chaos Christopher or Chris, is my calm. Actually his real name is Ronald. 

He makes me feel at ease. The tall striking man I’ve grown up watching in some of my favorite movies usually playing the villain but he’s really our hero. I can’t decide if he’d be in a bathrobe or perfectly groomed and well dressed for his first episode or perhaps it would vary keeping us all more engaged. 

I love you Walken. 

3._________________________

This next person already makes me feel guilty without even saying his name. BUT, during this time it’s important to try to keep going, keep learning, workout, yada yada yada.  Personally sometimes getting up to shower feels excruciating. I’ve lost my will to sing these days too weak to fight back tears that flood once I open my mouth, so I’ve turned to writing. Something... to try. I’m not great at it but whatever it passes the time. I can write about my ideas and fantasies anything to survive. This next channel pick is the survivor of all survivors who’s self tutorials I will never be able to complete but I’ll watch in awe until I die. 

Bear Fucking Grylls. 

Some Wikipedia shit on him to follow 

Edward Michael Grylls better known as Bear Grylls, is a British former SAS serviceman,  survival instructor, and honorary Lieutenant- colonel, and, outside his military career, an adventurer, writer, television presenter and businessman. He is widely known for his television series Man vs. Wild. In  July 2009, Grylls was appointed the youngest-ever Chief Scout of the United Kingdom and Overseas Territories at age 35, a post he has held for a second term since 2015. I don’t know what any of that means but it seems impressive and that he probably makes his bed every morning no matter what or where his bed is. 

His dad is a conservative politician that taught him how to climb, sail and skydive and most likely forced him to earn a second dan black belt in Shotohan Karate. HE speaks three languages.. I can’t keep going…its all too crazy for a normal human to process. 

The craziest in my opinion; Father of three in August 2015, Grylls left his young son, Jesse, on Saint Tudwal’s Island along the  North Wales coast, as the tide approached, leaving him to be rescued by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. (RNLI) as part of their weekly practice missions. Jesse was unharmed, though the RNLI later criticized him for the stunt, saying its crew "had not appreciated" that a child would be involved! What the fuck? Imagine if he was your dad? But also then I would know how to hopefully do a bunch more shit or survive if the world turns into the walking dead- which lately I think about often. 

I’m not even going to list his expeditions cause they will make you feel out of shape and guilty for not figuring out how to follow a simple stupid banana bread recipe online -  but they’re very impressive.  It’s all just too much. He hiked the Himalayan mountains, you know he’s that guy, but really THAT TOP GUY. 

I did watch part of his show where he took Channing Tatum into the wild and made him take his clothes off in freezing water to catch a fish by hand.  Loved that. 

But here’s why Bear is my pick- Because we are lazy and capable of so much more. Confined or free Bear is mentally and physically dialed in. 

I’d want to know his real opinion on what our bodies need to survive, house hold jobs, etc. Youtube would probably be his platform which a bunch of random copy cat accounts that think they are better than Bear.  Bear never insults anyone. He believes in us. We can survive if we keep learning and trying. From the master of social distancing and sustainability. His cooking suggestions I’d even try just to avoid another trip to the grocery store to be less wasteful and be more mindful of what I have rather than have not. 

Bear Grylls Boot Camp will save your life or at least help you loose a few llbs.

Who else would you like to see have a channel during this time and why? 

[dq108]

videogames (not) forever, tumblr dot com

HELLO. I am NOT Tim Rogers, but probably you already knew that. 

On Black Friday 2019, I bought a Nintendo Switch. It is the first video game console, handheld or otherwise, I have ever owned in my life (outside of a PC, if you count those as gaming consoles). Within a few hours of opening my Nintendo Switch box, I began playing the demo of Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age, Definitive Edition. 

This tumblr is going to be a chronicle of my journey through this game.

DQXI is not my first video game, although it is very close. Up until college, the only non-PC video game I had ever played was 1) Dance Dance Revolution (at other people’s houses), 2) arcade games (including a DDR knock-off) at our local laser tag place, and 3) this one time when for some reason my friend rented a Playstation for her birthday party and we played Dead or Alive 2 for a few hours in story mode. I guess I also owned a Tamagotchi and a NanoPet. Maybe those count.

In college I was once thrust the controller during a game of Halo and spent the entirety of my time being hit in the head with flying vehicles and also staring at the ground while my character stood in the water because I was not sure how to work the controls.

A year ago I bought a gaming PC for the express purpose of getting into League of Legends. Spoiler: I did not get into League of Legends. I tried Overwatch, and realized when playing the tutorial that it gave me motion sickness. Shortly thereafter my husband commandeered the thing and got so into PUBG that he was ranked for duos. I, on the other hand, have never graduated from playing against AI enemies. 

So yeah, as you can tell, the relevant facts about me are that I am old as heck and I extremely suck at video games. 

Which is not to say that I don’t like video games. To the contrary, I like them sort of too much for a person who does not actually play video games. I spent a lot of time in high school and college watching people play video games. I got into watching esports. And I am slowly making my way through cinematic cuts of the entire Metal Gear Solid franchise. 

Which brings me to Tim Rogers. 

On November 1, 2019, Tim Rogers through Kotaku released an hour long review of Death Stranding. It is, undoubtedly, one of my top ten favorite YouTube videos of this year, and quite possibly one of my favorite of all time. It was also the first Tim Rogers video I had ever watched. If you, too, really like Tim Rogers, you know what happened next. I binged his YouTube, uh, filmography(?) and ended up watching his 36 minute review of DQXI:

Tim Rogers is my ideal (fictional) (totally hypothetical) (only on the Internet and never in person) boyfriend. He is horrifically verbose and cannot stop overthinking little things in his preferred fictional genre (like me). He has bad eyesight (like me). He is from Indiana (like me). In his videos he comes off as someone who cannot physically shut up when it comes to explaining why he loves something (sadly, also like me). So when Tim Rogers said that Dragon Quest was his favorite video game series and that DQXI was one of the best video games he has ever played, I immediately did what I always do with something I love: I escalated inappropriately.

I went out and bought a Switch for the express purpose of playing DQXI.

So, here we are. These are my ground rules for the rest of this experience. You are warned:

I do not know anything about the Dragon Quest franchise outside of things that Tim Rogers has said about it. I’m indifferent to learning more. If you are going to tell me that certain things are better in other Dragon Quest games or other games in general, I might ignore you. It is not personal. I’m just, like, not asking to learn about the history of the genre right now (unless you are Tim Rogers).

This is my first JRPG game. I will be playing stupidly. I do not make any guarantees as to the quality of my play or my decision-making. I also have a tendency of playing overly conservative (in life and in games). I don’t expect this to change in DQXI.

I will be playing most of the fights with the autobattle system on. Spoiler: I have already discovered that setting my characters to “fight wisely” with “use Pep Powers automatically” still means that most times I don’t end up using my Pep Powers. I will probably be figuring out the solution to this through trial and error. As a result, I’m probably going to die a lot. You are free to offer advice! If you make fun of me, I will cry.

I fully intend to use walkthroughs and guides as guidance. No, this is not cheating. Also, I do not care about spoilers. 

I am playing with the English dub turned on, so all characters, names, and settings with be the English language version.

I’m already in love with Erik and want to marry my hero to him. 

My hero is named Haruhi, because that is my default automatic main character name every time a game asks me to input a name. It turns out that the commonly accepted naming convention in Dragon Quest VIII through XI is to call your hero by the Dragon Quest franchise number, but no one told me this. Also, Stranger Things’ Eleven already exists. 

[flighty37-blog]

Legacy

Summary: After living a long life, Dan and Phil are laid to rest by their children. As I have a whole sandbox of them being ‘together’, this is part of the sandbox. Enjoy. Or don’t. Normally not a shipper. But I have dipped my fingers/toes into that end of the pool.

Warnings: Major character deaths. Mentions of previous Mpreg.

Established Phan. 

G-PG-R...

Beginning of a new era:

"As we lay these two down into their final resting places; any last words?" The clergy looked out into the swelled audience.

The Audience, The Phans, the friends, the extended family, all come to say goodbye. The two men had lived a very long life, and had eventually fallen in love with each other. Each had carried a child, having  two very close in age, two months apart. Give or take a few weeks.

Then had come the surprise child. Their little Blyss. Fiona Blyss Lester-Howell. Normally in 'regular fanfictions' it would've been Howell-Lester, but this is no ordinary fan fiction. They weren't young when they'd passed on. On the contrary, they were well advanced in age. Eighty-eight, and eighty-four respectively.

Their two eldests in their mid forties and little Fiona Blyss only a mere twenty-seven. She was bookended by her elder siblings, and she was softly crying into a tissue.

"I have something to say," Louise had let go of Liam's hand, and was walking towards the stage. Louise was like a sister.

 She was a bit younger than them, in her mid seventies, still sporting pink in her hair, though it gravitated to the rest of her hair, rather than at the ends. Darcy and her younger sibling looked on, both in their mid to late twenties.

"These two caskets represent the two best men that have ever, and will ever live. They gave their private lives up to entertain us, and in the midst of that, raised a lovely family," Louise gestured over at the three in the front row.

"Fiona Blyss their surprise child," Louise gave a special smile to. Both siblings bumped shoulders onto Fiona's shoulders, and she gave them both a watery smile in turn. "They gave their all and then some," Louise finished with a slight bow, and she exited the stage.

"I have a few words," Michael Daniel Lester-Howell, stood.

He'd never married but he'd gone on to become a pretty famous vlogger. He loved to make content just like his fathers had done before him. Dorothy Cate was a good vlogger in her own right, but she was more into dance. She was quite an accomplished dancer. Not ballet, but ballroom. Dan and Phil couldn't have been more proud of her.

Fiona or Blyss, or even, Little Lyss hadn't quite found her niche in the world, but she was getting there. Doing makeup tutorials and the like. She had a pretty good following too.

Michael cleared his throat, and he spoke, "My dads, or rather Papa and Dad....." He cleared his throat again and turned away from the audience for a bit.

"My Papa and Dad were the kindest human beings that ever walked the face of the earth. When Dory and I got home this past week, we weren't expecting anything out of the ordinary. Just that Lyss was missing us and so were they. It was their anniversary anyway, and we had just  eaten cake. Then everyone went to bed....Or so we thought. At about midnight, we heard...." Michael stopped again.

He couldn't go on. What had happened that night would haunt him forever. Fiona and Dory found their ways onto the stage.

"We hadn't known they weren't feeling well," Dory started. "They'd never given any indication," Fiona replied after her sister.

"They had always been their upbeat selves and were happy and joking, and everything that Dad and Mumma could be," Fiona was the only one who called Dan 'mumma'. It had been said when she was five, and she'd thought it was a nicer, different title then Papa.

A few people smiled or chuckled at the word 'Mumma'. Fiona plowed on, "We heard a gurgling sound and then Dad called out to Mumma, and then Dad started crying...." Fiona turned to the open arms of her sister, who gently patted her back as in days of old.

"When we got there...." Michael had taken up the story again, and he gulped. Then he restarted, "When we got there, Papa and Dad had already passed. We were stood there in our pyjamas, stunned. Can you imagine? I felt as if I were ten again," Michael felt his eyes grow watery.

 So it was up to Dory, their own Dorothy Catherine to finish up.

"We called the coroner and then it became too real. We're keeping the house. It's been bought and paid for. We're thinking of turning it into a museum. Of course the Ikea sofa, still in the attic, might have to be brought down. We'll manage somehow," Dorothy Cate ended. And the three, holding tightly to each other, exited the stage.

"My god children are modest, and have endured a lot of grief. Ever since Martyn and Cornelia passed, leaving Ian and Celeste alone, though thank goodness they're in their late teens...." Louise looked out into the crowd again.

Ian and Celeste Lester were Martyn and Cornelia's children. Ian had been adopted, and Celeste had come naturally, and unexpectedly. Celeste Cornelia, and Ian Martyn Lester had grown up with Dan and Phil as well as their cousins. Dorothy had taken them in, and they were just finishing secondary school, almost off to university. Ian was finishing secondary school. Celeste was in the middle of her secondary schooling....

At the Reception/burial:

 They buried the two side by side, but not in the church graveyard. It was near the house. Dan had insisted that they not be 'traditional', so he had planned out a little plot of their garden to be used as a burial ground of sorts. Phil thought it was morbid, but as usual, went along with the idea.

 So they were 'buried at home'. Which seemed fitting as they were always at home and almost never going outside, save for special events. To the end they had been themselves. Laughing, joking,  playfully arguing. The usual.

"We'll make it," Dorothy said, as she and her siblings and cousins huddled a bit out of the way of the guests.

"I know we will, but I'll miss them terribly," Fiona said.

 "Poor Darling, you didn't have them for nearly as long as Mike and I did," Dorothy pushed Fiona's hair from her face.

"Stop it, I'm trying to make a fringe like Mumma's, and since I have the curliest hair...." Fiona's lower lip sprang out, and she looked quite like Phil.

 "That's scary! You look like Dad!" Michael had his hand over his heart. Fiona was the oddest out of the siblings. She had the oddest mix of curly red and brown hair, a brown eye and a blue eye, and she was most definitely the perfect mix of their fathers.

Dory looked mostly like Phil, but with Dan's eyes, and Michael looked mostly like Dan, but with Phil's eyes. Fiona was the most blended. She was beautiful and talented, and clumsy.

"I do have Daddy's palest skin though. You two got lucky," Fiona sighed.

"Cheer up," Celeste offered. "At least you aren't gangly and have red hair," Celeste continued.

"I'm adopted, I don't have any horrible traits," Ian joked.

"Shut it Ian," Celeste playfully pushed him.

"Munchkins," Darcy found the five. She and her younger sister Iona were helping Louise out with her channel. Louise had slowed down a bit, but she was still active.

"Hi Darce! Hi Iona," All five chimed in. They usually were in sync. The curse of being so close to each other. Yet it was a blessing as well.

"I hate when you all do that," Darcy laughed. She was definitely her mother's daughter.

 "We just wanted to say our condolences," Iona offered shyly.

"Thanks," Michael said, taking the lead.

"We're just so sorry for your loss. I loved them like they were my own uncles," Darcy said.

"And going to conventions and things," Dorothy nodded.

 "Oh all of them," Darcy affirmed. As they all talked, they weren't aware they were being observed by two pearly spectrals.

 "Look at them Phil," 'Dan' spoke first.

 "They're all grown up," 'Phil' wiped a 'pearly tear' from his eye.

"How the hell can you even cry? We're 'ghosts'," 'Dan' air quoted.

"But I'm magic. I've always been magic. So I can still produce moisture," 'Phil' answered.

"Don't say moisture. That's still a gross word on this side of the mortal plane," 'Dan' 'pushed' 'Phil's' shoulder.

"Uhh I meant tears. I didn't mean anything else," 'Phil' clarified.

"You know, I'm liking being dead. Even as I bemoaned being alive, yes it became a schtick, I'm kinda glad we're carrying on our own channels. I mean it's sort of like Tatinof, and I'm sooo glad I look like I'm eighteen again, and you're back to being twenty-two," 'Dan' observed.

"Well spotted, but I agree, we're still doing what we loved in the mortal realm. Except we don't have computers," 'Phil' replied.

"Which is what disappoints me the most about the after life. We're performing on stages, instead of behind screens. I'm gonna have a talk with 'That Spirit Up Above," 'Dan' put his hands on his hips.

"God?" Phil questioned.

"I still don't believe in this 'God' you speak of," 'Dan' retorted.

"Come off it Dan," 'Phil' rolled his eyes.

"Don't roll your eyes they'll get lost again," 'Dan' said. As the two 'ghosts' 'spectres', what have you, bantered in the corner watching the proceedings, Their (now adult) children, went over to the spread.

"Do you think Mumma and Dad are happy wherever they're at?" Fiona ventured, as she put some food on her plate.

"Definitely, and probably arguing in the afterlife just like here," Dory answered, and patted her sister's shoulder.

"Probably being themselves," Michael spoke up.

"You mean banting?" Fiona was hopeful, as more tears sprang to her eyes unbidden.

"Oh no Ona's crying," Dan said, as he floated closer to the three, Phil following closely behind.

"She's sad Dan," Phil observed.

"Well I know that. I just want her to  feel better," Dan answered.

"Mumma?" Fiona perked up and she looked to where Dan was floating.

"Mumma is that you? You look like you're....Eighteen," Fiona nearly dropped the plate, but thankfully Dory caught it.

"Well it happens when you die. You regress back to a younger version of yourself," Phil spoke up.

 "Daddy!" Fiona grinned.

"In the flotsam," Phil grinned widely, and spread his transparent arms wide open. Dory and Michael both teared up as they watched the 'reunion'.

 "You look handsome," Dory spoke up.

"Of course I was always the handsomest," Dan's chest puffed out a bit.

"I think she meant both of you Papa Bear," Michael set the record straight.

"Right," Dan conceded.

"What are you...I mean to say...." Dory fumbled with her words, as she set hers and Fiona's plates down.

 "We came to see that you buried us where we planned, and you did. And that you're going to use this place well," Dan said.

"Uh-huh and I'm glad to see that the old sofa's coming out of retirement," Phil spoke up.

"We love, loved you two," Dory said.

"Of course we did, and we don't want you to fade away into obscurity," Fiona said.

"Besides you can haunt this place all you want. Just try not to knock down the cameras," Michael's voice floated above his excited sisters' voices.

"I have never done anything on purpose, it's all been accidental," Dan said.

"It's not our fault that this old house has cracks in the walls," Phil spoke up.

"Well no, it's just that you are, were, the clumsiest people alive," Darcy put in.

"And you sprained and stretched so many ligaments that A&E knew you by name," Iona smirked. Dan feigned anger.

"You try and be awkward and uncoordinated," Phil spoke up.

 "I am!" Fiona announced.

"She nearly broke her foot on the way out the door," Dory said, wanting to hug her fathers one last time, but knowing she'd just go through them, and feel, as if she'd been in a misty cold shower.

"We've practised at becoming solid," Phil seemed to read his eldest daughter's thoughts.

 "Really?" Dory wasn't at all surprised at Phil's sudden announcement.

"Uh-huh," Phil responded. "And I think I've almost got it," Phil squeezed his eyes shut, and all of a sudden he became less transparent, but he still looked to be twenty-two. He spread open his arms again, and the two young women rushed headlong into them.

Michael was slowly trailing behind, but was just as eager to hug his father. They nearly made Phil fall backwards into the punch, but he recovered. He hugged his daughters, and held out a hand for Michael to shake. But Michael shook his head, and wrapped his arms around his sisters, and his father.

"Oh god...." He whispered.

"Heyyyy what about me?" Dan had also managed to make himself more visible, less transparent.

"Papa! Mumma!" Dory and Fiona let go of Phil and barrelled into Dan, nearly crushing him as well.

 Michael and Phil were still hugging. Michael was silently crying, and Phil was wiping his tears away.

"I'm forty years old, and you're wiping my tears away like I'm four," Michael tried to be angry, but failed.

"Because, when I look at you from this side you're still four," Phil said.

"Your perspective sees me as four?" Michael asked.

"Oh yeah, I mean if we observe from far away, you're an adult, but this way? You're still little, and Fiona's still toddling about," Phil said.  

"That sort of makes sense," Michael said, as Dan joined them, Fiona and Dory bookending him.

"We should go Phil," Dan said, as he took a hold of his partner's hand.

"Alright," Phil nodded and as they grasped hands, they became transparent spectrals.

"We'll see you," Dan said.

"But not soon! You have a full rich life ahead of you," Phil said, and wagged a parental finger at them. Then they disappeared.

"See Fi-Fi?" Iona tried to reassure her friend.

"I'm glad they're happy," Fiona wiped some tears from her cheeks. They were happy tears, and she was glad she had gotten to hug them both one last time.

"Let's wrap this shit up," Michael said.

"Repress it?" Dory asked.

 "Yep before I start crying...." Fiona chimed in.

 "I'm gonna go and cry into a slice of pizza," Celeste censored the next part.

"Shout out to the other YouTubers," Ian chimed in.

"Especially Ryan Higa...." Celeste spoke again, and the five laughed. This was how a funeral was meant to be. At least their fathers' funeral was meant to be this way. Just as in life, like it should be when one departed the mortal coil.

"Let's go home," Dory said.

"I can't wait," Michael said, and looked longingly at the wall that his fathers had dissolved into.

"They're still here. Waiting until it's right to become visible and wreak havoc," Fiona affirmed.

They thanked all the guests and soon it was over. They brought the leftovers to Michael's flat, and then the siblings hugged one last time and went their separate ways.

Epilogue 'Old Brick House', Midnight:

"Ready?" Dan pushed the tripod into place. Phil was at the ready.

"Let's do this," Phil nodded, and somehow they zapped the camera, the lighting and the laptop to life.

"One last broadcast?" Dan asked, as he slid beside Phil.

"Yeah!" Phil said in an excited voice.

"Hey guys! So as you know...."" Phil waved a transparent hand at the camera.

"Hello," Dan chimed in saluting.

"Welcome one and all to the last Dan and Phil show...." Phil started.

Soon there was bantering, and joking, fake arguing and lots of looks being passed between the two of them. Just as in life. So it would be in death. Nothing had changed, except their skeletons were in the ground. Nothing would change. So it would be forever.

The End.

[rahella-khan]

Model says she had AN affair with Woody Allen when she was sixteen - however has 'no regrets'

Model Christina Engelhardt told the Hollywood newsperson she had Associate in Nursing affair with Allen once she was sixteen and he was forty one, and 'I haven't any regrets.' A Golden State girl says she had a years-long affair with director movie maker that began once she was simply sixteen and he was forty one. In associate degree interview with the Hollywood communicator, Christina Engelhardt same she became knowledgeable about Allen at his Manhattan lodging whereas she was still sixteen – beneath the legal status of consent in ny – however she doesn’t feel exploited by the moviemaker. I'm not assaultive Woody," Engelhardt, now 59, told the magazine in associate degree interview printed Mon. "This isn't 'bring down this man.' i am talking concerning my romance. This created ME World Health Organization i'm. i've got no regrets." She same they were along for eight years, and generally engaged in threesomes with alternative girls, together with histrion Mia Farrow. She same she found the experiences “interesting – a ‘70s exploration.” Engelhardt – associate degree histrion associate degreed a model – same she was one among the inspirations for the teen character Allen's author character had an affair with in his 1979 show “Manhattan.” Reps for Allen, 83, and Farrow, 73, failed to answer requests for comment. Engelhardt isn’t the primary girl to mention she had associate degree affair with Allen whereas in highschool throughout that point frame — histrion Stacy Nelkin has same she did similarly, however that their relationship began once she was seventeen.

Nelkin whom Allen has acknowledged geological dating, has conjointly claimed to be the inspiration for the Mariel writer character in “Manhattan.” Nelkin told NBC News on Mon that she’d ne'er detected of Engelhardt, however that Allen might need been seeing alternative girls throughout that point amount “doesn’t surprise ME.” Like Engelhardt, Nelkin remembers her relationship with Allen — whom she same she continues to be shut friends with — warmly. The time Woody and that i spent along was marvelous and unforgettable. That being same, I actually wouldn’t need either of my daughters thus far somebody twenty four years their senior,” she said. Engelhardt failed to answer letter of invitation for treat the THR story. Image Christina EngelhardtChristina Engelhardt attends the 2006 metropolis fete - start - when Party Hosted by LA Confidental Magazine at Writers club Theater in metropolis, California.Michael Bezjian / WireImage/Getty pictures file Engelhardt told the magazine she was already operating as a model once she caught sight of Allen in known writers’ resort Elaine’s — a brand new royal house town bar and building — in 1976. She same she born him a note at his table along with her sign that scan, “Since you’ve signed enough autographs, here’s mine!” She same he known as her shortly when and invited her to his avenue apartment, and that they became physically intimate weeks later. She same he ne'er asked her her age, however was aware she was still in highschool. Engelhardt same Allen unbroken their relationship quiet by invariably having her over to his lodging and ne'er taking her out. She same she had no downside with him business the shots. I was a entertainer, agreeable," she said. "Knowing he was a director, I did not argue. i used to be returning from an area of devotion." In the THR interview, Engelhardt same she believes Hemingway’s “Tracy” character relies on a composite of girls, however one among them was her. She conjointly same she’d had no advance warning concerning what the show was concerning. I cried through most of the show, the dayspring of realization slowly subsidence in as my greatest fears crept to the surface," she wrote during a memoir manuscript she shared with the magazine. "How was our partnership not one thing over simply a fling? we tend to had shared such a special bond right from the beginning, one thing witching, and currently here was his interpretation of ME and North American nation on the large screen for all to determine in black-and-white. however may he interpret my temperament and our life along as if it were just a few fictional creation for art house fatheads to pore over?" She same that once she next saw Allen, she told him she saw plenty of similarities between Hemingway's character and her. "I thought you'd," she same he responded. That was it," she wrote in her manuscript. "That was all i might ever get out of him concerning the film, and searching back currently, i'm therefore angry with myself for not being stronger." She same she eventually left Allen and ny. I thought i used to be special, so i noticed he is a giant person and he is got a giant life — i am in his life," she said. "It's a rainbow with several colours, and i am one among them." And whereas she has heat recollections of their time along, she same she was upset when looking for concerning Allen's relationship with Farrow's much-younger adopted girl Soon-Yi Previn. I felt pitying Mia," she told the magazine. "I thought, 'Didn't Woody have enough 'extra,' with or while not her, that the final thing he had to try and do was to travel for one thing that was whole hers?' "It was total disrespect," she said. Allen and Previn are married for twenty one years. you liked article, this then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook. Read the full article

[templeofgeek]

This week’s featured cosplayer is someone that we wanted to feature for a long time! Her name is Waifutella and she builds some of the most impressive cosplay but if you as her, she will say she is just the world’s okayest cosplayer. Temple of Geek has reached out to Waifutella to chat about her cosplay to which she graciously accepted. Continue on to learn about her cosplay, her fandoms, and her love for Nutella.

(Danniel Slade) Can you start off by telling me a little bit about yourself?

(Waifu Tella) I’m afraid there’s not really much to say! I’m a lot more boring than people give me credit for. I’m a full time student, cosplayer, and huge hecking nerd.

Photo by Emmy Mrozowska

(DS) Okay, I need to ask. What does your cosplay name, Waifutella, mean and how did you come up with it?

(WT) Waifutella is a combination of two words- the first being “waifu” (a term that anime fans know well). A waifu is a character who is so perfect you would snatch her up in a hot second and marry her if you could. The second word is nutella- anyone who follows me knows how much I adore it. It’s a bit of an addiction actually- I eat it straight from the jar, on the daily.

  (DS) Why do you use the subtitle “world’s okayest cosplayer?”

(WT) *burts out singing Ingrid Michaelson’s “I just want to be okay”

I don’t do well with compliments. I’m a vending machine, compliments are a wrinkly dollar bill- it’s just really frustrating and uncomfortable for everyone involved. When I wore my first real cosplay (Bucky Barnes) to a convention and later posted pics on Instagram, people were complimenting it left and right, and I would insist that my work was at best okay. One of my friends joked that I was the “world’s okayest cosplayer” and… it just stuck ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Photo by Ernie Jay

(DS) What fandoms are you into?

(WT) Marvel (cinematic and comics) is definitely my go-to, particularly Captain America, Captain Marvel, and both Hawkeyes. I also adore Blizzard Games, (Overwatch/StarCraft II/Diablo III) No Game No Life, Welcome to Night Vale, the Tolkeinverse, HP (hufflepride!), The Witcher, Doctor Who, Legend of Zelda and Kingdom Hearts.

  (DS) When did you get into cosplay?

(WT) My friend and I went to our first con together-SDCC- and all of our information about conventions was gathered through Tumblr posts. They made it seem like everyone there cosplayed, and I didn’t want to be the only person left out, so I brought along my Halloween costume. When we got there, it seemed like hardly anybody else was dressed up, but I had a lot of fun! So I kept doing it, and I’ve found it to be a really great and diverse creative outlet as well as a great way to make new friends. Excluding Halloween costumes, it’s been a little over two years now!

  (DS) How do you choose what you are going to create for cosplay?

(WT) I’ve actually recently changed my entire approach to this. I used to make cosplays for characters that I liked well enough and weren’t a huge financial burden to make (textbooks aren’t as fun as cosplay, but they’re definitely my priority.). Nowadays, I need to be a hardcore fan of the character and the design. I’m tying to put a lot more craftsmanship and technique into my work; so I try to choose characters that I love enough to spend repeated all nighters working on. It means I haven’t had a steady stream of new content, but I’m a lot more excited to show everyone what I’ve accomplished!

  (DS) In total, how many costumes have you created over the years?

(WT) Oh heck. Definitely more than seven. Ummm… I’ve done quite a few, and about half of those were so awful that they’ve never been shown to the internet (and they never will)

Photo by Michael Benedict

(DS) Do you have a favorite costume that you want to wear over and over?

(WT) I would love nothing more than to wear the winter soldier over and over again, but last time I was in it, I broke the elbow! So, sadly, it will have to wait until I can make a new arm.

  (DS) What was your easiest build?

(WT) My easiest build was definately the punisher. I grabbed my gun, shoes and shorts from the winter soldier, roughed up and old pleather jacket, added paneling to the sleeves for aesthetic, and painted his logo on a T-shirt. That, plus wig styling, took the better part of an afternoon.

Photo by Michael Benedict

(DS) Now on the flip side, what was your hardest build?

(WT) My most difficult build- I would have to say it’s a tie between two characters. I’ve been working on Captain America and on Twilight Princess for the better part of a year, but every time I finish, I put it on and decide it’s not good enough to represent them properly. So I’ve remade them each at least six times. I think I’ve got them pretty much set this time around, though, so hopefully I can show the final versions off soon.

  (DS) What is your favorite convention to cosplay at?

(WT) I think it’s going to be Blizzcon! Last year I went for the first time, and I didn’t really cosplay for it but it was such an amazing convention, it felt like home. I’ve got big plans for Blizzcon 2018, I’ve been working on the cosplays for months now- they’re definately my hugest builds yet.

  (DS) Do you have a funny or embarrassing story that you are willing to share that happened while in cosplay?

(WT) So, my second time wearing my Winter Soldier cosplay at SDCC, it got a lot of attention. I was being stopped for photos left and right. Since people may not actually know you, they have a tendency to shout out your character’s name to get your attention (as its a lot more effective than shouting out “hey you” or “cosplayer!!” in a crowded con) I kind of got into it that year, whenever someone would shout out “Bucky” I would turn around and reply as best as I could in character, “Who the h*ll is Bucky?” People loved it. In the evening my friends and I went out for dinner- still in cosplay, and I was still getting pressed for photos left and right. I was waiting at the bar to get a drink and when I heard someone say “Bucky” I grabbed my airsoft rifle, turned around, gave the guy my best winter soldier deadpan and delivered my line, hand resting on the trigger. His face drained and he stammered out “my girlfriend..” turns out he was on a business trip and he and his friend were just grabbing dinner after a day at the office and he was telling his coworker about his girlfriend Becky. He had no idea what Comiccon was and had never even heard of my character. I felt awful! I ended up buying him and his friend a drink as my way of apologizing and reassuring him I wasn’t going to pelt them with airsoft bullets.

Photo by Hino Ben

(DS) Are you affiliated with any cosplay groups?

(WT) I’m not with any official groups, but I’m part of the @Cosplay_And_Babes Instagram family! I’m also a page model for @Hotandgeeky (also on the Instagram), and I’m definitely an advocate for @butternut_gouache’s #ForceAgainstCyberBullying campaign.

  (DS) Looking back at your early cosplay years, is there anything you would tell yourself that you know now that you didn’t know then?

(WT) I’d tell myself not to wear a cosplay that I’m not 100% passionate about. There was a really brief period where I’d make a new costume for the sake of new social media content, and eventually I started getting pressured into wearing specific cosplays because “it would get you more Instagram followers” or “your followers would like that more.” The moment I let that last one start to effect me I had to take a break from cosplay and think about a few things. And honestly? It’s ridiculous that it was even pressured on me to do so. The people who advised that were 100% trying to help me out in their own way and I don’t harbor any resentment towards them for it, but catering to strangers on the internet isn’t me. I’m not getting paid to do this, I don’t have a Patreon, and I’m not here to try to get famous. I’m here to dress up like fictional characters and have fun with my friends, and I shouldn’t let anything influence that.

  (DS) Do you have a cosplay that you consider empowering to wear?

(WT) Definately steve.

  (DS) What is on your cosplay bucket list?

(WT) I’d love to cosplay every version of Captain America, Bucky Barnes and Peggy Carter one day.

  (DS) Outside of cosplay, what do you do for fun?

(WT) I never have fun I’m too focused on my GPA! But okay, I also do archery, play video games and collect vinyl records.

  (DS) Are there any other cosplayers that inspire you?

(WT) My best friend Mikky (@mikkydyer on the Insta, Internet do your thing) is a huge inspiration for me. I actually adapted my pants for Captain America and my new version of HydraCap and my upcoming Captain America cosplay from her work. Mikky is absolutely amazing, the craftsmanship and attention to detail she puts into each cosplay astounds me. As someone who never learned how to properly sew (I usually just put fabric in front of a machine and pray it doesn’t fall apart as I’m wearing it… yes that has happened before.) it’s really amazing to see people who put in proper technique and methods into their craft. Besides, she’s not just an inspiration to my cosplay, she’s an inspiration to my daily life, she’s without a doubt one of the best people I have ever had the privilege to meet, and the honor to call my friend.

Photo by Michael Benedict

(DS) What is your next convention that fans will see you at?

(WT) I really only go to one or two conventions a year- between school and finances, it gets rather difficult to do more than that- I’ll be at Blizzcon this November, and after that the only thing that I guarantee is SDCC 2019.

  (DS) What would you say to someone who might want to build their first costume but don’t know how to get started?

(WT) Research the heck out of it! You can never find too much information on how to do something. Look at tutorials for characters with similar designs, different tutorials for the same pieces, research the materials you use, try to see how a bunch of other people have done it and use their methods to find what works best for you! And be sure to hit up your local thrift store (I’m partial to goodwill) and see if they have any pieces you can buy for your costume. There’s more than one way to make a cosplay. I started writing a series on my Tumblr page about cosplay research and building.

  (DS) How can our readers find out more about you?

(WT) On Instagram @waifutella, On Twitter @waifutella, On Tumblr at waifutella.tumblr.com and on Kofi (bonus content) ko-fi.com/waifutella!

  GALLERY

Photo by Square Noodles Film & Photography | IG @square_noodles

Photo by Ernie Jay | IG @yo_ernie

Photo by Ernie Jay | IG @yo_ernie

Photo by Michael Benedict | IG @michaelbenedictla

Photo by Bill$ Costello | IG @billscostello

Photo by Square Noodles Film & Photography | IG @square_noodles

Photo by Ernie Jay | IG @yo_ernie

Photo by Ernie Jay | IG @yo_ernie

Photo by Michael Benedict | IG @michaelbenedictla

Temple of Geek's Featured #Cosplay - @Waifutella #Marvel #CaptainAmerica #WinterSoldier This week's featured cosplayer is someone that we wanted to feature for a long time! Her name is Waifutella and she builds some of the most impressive cosplay but if you as her, she will say she is just the world’s okayest cosplayer.