#i also don't like my old editing method

[corrienteallita]

First Floor

Ground Floor

I've figured out what was wrong with the floorplan for Umbrage Manor. Despite the beautiful symmetry on the outside of the lot, the inside was one tile too thin so couldn't be split up evenly. This explains the odd tiny kitchen, and the weird shaped rooms.

I've redone the floor plan. I'm not 100% happy with it, so it'll most certainly evolve as I start decorating.

Happy with how the outside is starting to look though!

I haven't started working on the landscaping yet. I normally do that halfway through decorating the inside when I need a change of pace.

I also need to think about a family to go in this house...

Pendula View now has a nice aesthetic going on! Umbrage Manor is fitting in nicely with Ophelia Villa and Parkshore.

[zais-zafu]

ʚïɞ ⋆｡ how I use psych k to reprogram my mind ｡⋆ ʚïɞ

hi everyone! today I am gonna talk about psych k - a combination of techniques I have been using to change any limiting beliefs I had and reprogram my subconscious to know it is limitless.

now available as a yt video!!

table of contents:

1. what is psych k & why/how it works

2. techniques to use

3. steps to follow in every psych session

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chapter 1: what is psych k & why/how it works

so psych k is a collection of methods used to reprogram the subconscious mind through releasing old patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving, it basically uses specific protocols to get you back to the super learning state you had as a child.

I find it quite great to use for changing beliefs around myself, my life, and my manifestations, also these techniques help you assess how strong (or real) a belief feels to you, which we will talk about later.

these techniques might take time to master as you get to know your body, but really you don't really need to be a pro to do them well. the practice is mostly about getting better at self-assessing your beliefs.

so why exactly does psych k work?

basically, as children until the age of 7, our brains engaged in a full-time mode of super learning. that meant that it was absorbing all kinds of beliefs, ideas, knowledge at such a fast pace, almost like our brain is made out of sponge. this meant that whatever environment we were put in affected our subconscious mind, directly rewiring new beliefs.

now where does psych k fall in all of this?

through psych k techniques, you are able to go back to the super learning mode of the brain we had as children, which in turn allows you to edit your subconscious beliefs directly w/o the conscious mind interfering. instead of going the long way with regular affirmations, you speed up the process with psych k!

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chapter 2: techniques to use

🫧 part 1: questioning/testing techniques

these techniques are used to test the strength of a belief or ask the subconscious mind 'questions' (in the form of affirmative statements, not actual questions).

so let's say I wanna test how strongly I believe, 'I am worthy of happiness,' if I truly believed it, I will get a strong response (depending on the technique used, more on that below) and if I don't believe it, I will receive a weak response. so basically, if you wanna receive insight to how your subconscious mind feels about certain statements, remember this point: strong response = yes and weak response = no.

now let's talk about some methods that you can use for testing, seeking permission, and asking the sub mind:

🦋 technique 1.1: arm lever test

this is my go to technique for testing a belief. you can find videos that demonstrated it in the sources at the end of the post, but here I will explain the steps of using it:

1. stand up, keep your face straight (don't lower your neck), keep your eyes open, and look down by lowering your gaze only

2. hold your arm out: extend one arm straight out in front of you. hold it a little upward

3. test with the other hand: use your other hand to gently press on the extended arm, kinda on the middle/wrist area

4. test statements: bring into your awareness a belief like 'I am worthy of happiness.' if the sub mind thinks the statement is true, your arm should stay strong and resist being pushed down (strong response), but if the statement is false, your arm would weaken and easily be pushed down (weak response).

🦋 technique 1.2: finger o-ring test

(never tried it but ig it is a more descrete and an easier way compared to the arm lever test, so if you decide to try it, lmk how it went!)

1. form a ring or O shape by touching the tips of your thumb and index finder together on one hand

2. test the ring: with the other hand, use your thumb and index finger to gently try to pull apart the O shape while saying specifc statements or affirmations. a strong response is the ring not breaking, a weak response is the ring formation breaking apart.

🫧 part 2: new belief integration techniques

now we will talk about the bulk of the work: reprogramming your subconscious mind. I will start with talking about the main technique I have seen being used and then some other techniques I have heard about, but I haven't really tested, now let's begin!

🦋 technique 2.1: the whole-brain posture (the "balance" position)

1. sit comfortably on a chair with your feet flat on the ground.

2. cross your legs and arms over each other:

there are 4 combinations in which u could do that: right ankle over left, right wrist over left / right ankle over left, left wrist over right / left ankle over right, right wrist over left / left ankle over right, left wrist over right.

the way you choose to do it is important since a side of your body holds the belief you wanna change over the other, I usually don't bother knowing which side is weaker (aka needs more reprogramming) & instead I do all of the 4 combination for like 5 minutes each (or until I feel that my mind has accepted the affirmations).

anywho, once you have decided which combination you will use for the next 5 minutes, extend your arms in front of you then interlock your fingers and bring your hands up toward your chest.

3. close your eyes, take in deep breaths to calm yourself down, and focus on affirming or visualising the belief you want to integrate for as long as you need (like I said, I usually do 5 mins).

4. once you're done, uncross your limbs and reposition.

5. save the new belief by placing your fingertips together in front of you (forming a pyramid shape) for a few seconds (if the sub mind is a computer, think of this as a safe command!)

6. if you wanna, rinse and repeat for all combinations.

🦋 other techniques:

2.2: cross-crawl exercise: stand up and march in place, lifting your knees high. as you lift your left knee, touch it with your right hand. then lift your right knee and touch it with your left hand. (this promotes integration of the two sides of the mind). continue for a minute or two, focusing on the positive belief or intention you want to integrate.

2.3: energy yawns: place your fingertips on your cheekbones and gently massage while yawning deeply. this relaxes the brain and enhances focus.

2.4: lazy 8s: trace a large figure 8 in front of you with your hand, moving from left to right. this exercise helps integrate both hemispheres and improve coordination.

｡⋆｡˚ ʚïɞ ˚｡⋆｡⋆｡˚ ʚïɞ ˚｡⋆｡⋆｡˚ ʚïɞ ˚｡⋆｡⋆｡˚ ʚïɞ ˚｡⋆｡⋆｡˚ ʚïɞ ˚｡⋆｡

chapter 3: steps to follow in every psych session

next we are going to talk about some sort of procedure I have come up with for whenever I am doing a self-administered psych k session. you don't have to follow it exactly, but I hope it provides w the guidance you need to start immediately!

🦋 step 0: preperations

it is important for you to be in a relaxed, meditative state for the work to be even more effective so here are some extra stuff you can do before starting the session:

1. stay hydrated + keep some water beside you

2. sit in a quiet room all alone

3. use noise-cancelling earphones for more quietness

4. listen to some type of colour noise at all times to stay relaxed + focus inward instead of outward

5. keep some journal with you (or use the notes app) to record, reflect, and take any notes

🦋 step 1: establish the protocol

before starting anything I want you to have an idea of what exactly you wanna get out of this session, so sit down & write down the methodology for this session based on this chapter. so basically, you specify each of the following steps I will discuss in this chapter cos psych k has many approaches

you can also identify your why for carrying out this session and what affirmations/visualisations/etc. you will be using.

write that all down on a piece of paper or an online document, so you could refer back to whenever you need to remember the next step

🦋 step 2: prepare your mind and body

now you need to relax your body and mind, stop overthinking and stay present, for that I recommend breath work, I personally use the wim hof technique!

after you're done regulating your breathing, and with it your mind and body, take a moment to state your intention to connect with your subconscious mind, elevate any symptoms, and change beliefs using X affirmation (or any other technique), you can say this outloud or just in your mind.

🦋 step 2.5: identify what you want to work on

step 2 is built on the assumption that you already know what you wanna program, but if you don't you can use this stage before stage 2. here are some suggestions for how to pick a belief:

1. order beliefs and work on ones that are the most foundational, ones affecting multiple areas of life or your self concept

2. choose a belief that is urgent, that is it is causing you major stress in your life and it is what you mostly think of

3. layer your beliefs. what I mean is you can start with a general belief, such as 'I am capable.' and as you do more sessions, add more details to it, for example 'I am capable of succeeding in my career.'

4. google general limiting beliefs people have. you can even google specfic ones like 'limiting beliefs around love' and see which one resonates

5. journal, sometimes a quick journaling session can immediatly tell u what immediate obstacle there is in your thinking, which will give you a great idea of what belief you need to change

🦋 step 3: use a testing (permission) technique to identify where your beliefs are at, then test and establish baseline responses

like I said, psych k helps you understand how much you believe a belief, refer back to chapter 2 for some testing/permission techniques to use, but basically you will decide what technique you wanna use (I usually go for the arm lever test)

next, you will use the technique to establish what is a weak response for you and what is a strong one. you can use commands, such as 'be strong' & 'be weak,' or basic statements like 'my name is [false name]' & 'my name is [true name]' to understand what a true & false response feels like

🦋 step 4: ask question regarding the belief to test it & maybe revise intentions

so now that you know what a strong belief verses a weak one shows up in your body, it is time to ask some questions! basically you are gonna say your limiting belief (just like you'd say an affirmation and in present tense) and then test to see how strong (real) it seems + you will do the same for your affirmation to measure its strength

you can ask follow up Qs in the form of much specific statements to understand how your body truly feels about it. based on your findings, you can set new intentions if you think there's a better belief to work on rn.

🦋 step 4.5: ask for permission to change the belief using a testing/permission technique

for this you can use the same technique you used in the step before to test the belief. you basically set your intentions using something along the lines of, 'I request permission from my subconscious and superconscious mind to proceed with this belief change.' you can get more specific or change the wording to your liking

the reason this is step 4.5 is because I don't see it always being used, though I think it is good practice to ask for permission before trying to do something that might be too traumatic to do at this stage.

basically, a strong response = yes & a weak respone = no

if you get a no, you might wanna reflect (through your journal) on why this happened and how can you change that, maybe this is not the belief to change for today or maybe you gotta approach it from a different angle.

you can continue to test your sub mind through different statements and asking for permission, when you're satistified with the results you may continue!

🦋 step 5: choose a belief integration technique to integrate using the balance position

now for the bulk of the work! you're gonna decide on what technique you're gonna use to reprogram and what supplementary techniques you will use (affirmations, visualisations, aff tapes, etc.) (my fave rn is aff tapes!!)

like I said before, I typically use the whole-brain posture. and ofc, once you're done you will just save it as discussed, and then repeat it if you wanna

🦋 step 6: test the belief again

repeat step 4 & use a testing technique (like the lever test) to identify how your beliefs have changed

🦋 step 7: solidify your belief over time

give yourself a couple of weeks or a month and then, retest the belief again using a testing technique (after relaxing and getting into a meditative state of course).

then you can try to anchor them through visualising. another good way to solidify them is to set goals and actionable steps for yourself to challenge the old belief

& ofc pay attention to how you feel and if it feels like you need another session, go for it!

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andddd that's all!! thank you sm for reading and good luck reminding yourself that you are limitless! these techniques are on the newer side for me so let me know your experiences and thoughts on the topic cos I am always open to learning more about it <3

p.s: here are my main source that I reccomend watching as a beginner + if you wanna see live demonstration of the techniques:

https://youtu.be/xr7mZmIhBSg?si=fWyigeSDc9oPsdqn

https://youtu.be/qhDH_a3MHKo?si=XfGV8Mg5lIHAUSH8

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[scoutofmymind]

hey loved your fics you are incredibly talented. i have a scene picture some angst reader is kinda like jo march if u watched little women and luigi is laurie in that one hill scene. basically reader prioritizes acads because of her upbringing - high achiever, academic validations, the whole package and luigi somehow is the same but he compels the reader in a magnetic way because luigi gets to be so carefree and awesome about it and turns out luigi and reader have a common thread and it's turning out rlly good but then reader is slightly scared of commitment in a relationship dare i say? because it was all acads for reader even though there were dreams of having a relationship, it all seemed abstract and unreal!! and the angst comes when luigi confesses to reader and reader reacts very defensive i suppose spitting out word vomit enumerating reasons why luigi shouldnt like her and how he's too good for her and luigi just shuts reader up by pinching their cheeks and holding them steady saying i want you all of you all that sweet stuff...this is just a thought i want to say i admire you heavily your writing is pivotal

Without Me — { Luigi x Reader}

Content: SFW, angst, yearning, pining, best friends, purest love, summer, unrequited, lowkey gut-wrenching (sorry)

Wc: 6,843 (I could not stop writing)

Notes; Before we begin, I have to say, anon, I very much enjoyed writing this!! And thank you so much for sending me this request! ✨ there are only a couple bits of dialogue that match the hill scene, but I wanted to throw them in there!

This is lowkey a mini-fic, so enjoy!

Side note: If anything is badly edited, I will likely come back to do some cleaning up. But maybe not. Also I’ve started picking songs to include in requests wherever they may fit in. I want to mention too that backstory is something I just simply can’t leave out when it comes to angsty or emotional scenes, so I’m sorry I literally can’t shut up.

The cicadas weave their summer hymn through the gentle lap of water against stone, your body stretched across whisper-soft grass beside the reservoir.

This spot holds years of you both — echoes of skinned knees and bruised elbows soothed by cool spring water, of childhood dares and teenage secrets.

"You never swim with me anymore." Luigi's voice carries no accusation, just a quiet observation that somehow makes it worse. You can picture his expression without looking —that gentle, knowing thing that always sees too much. "All you do now is torch yourself in the sun."

Your back peels away from the grass, elbows bent to prop you up. Through his borrowed sunglasses — because of course you forgot yours back at the house, and of course he had a spare —you study him.

He's summer personified: water-darkened hair curling at his temples, shoulders golden in the early evening light, wearing a smile easy as breathing.

"I just don't want to get my hair wet, Lu." You say it with the comfortable certainty of someone who's had this exact argument a hundred times before.

"Well, don't then." His retort is quick, familiar. He moves through the water with an easy grace that somehow makes the old reservoir look more inviting than it ever has, though you'd never admit it.

Your shoulders are painted with freckles from all these summer days — chasing chickens in the fields, racing bikes into the city with him riding at your back, his presence as constant as the seasons.

"But then when I get out, I'll be cold." The words float between you like lazy dragonflies, and Luigi just shakes his head, spattering droplets that catch the light.

He pouts, but not like you do.

Where your pouts are theatrical productions, his is a quiet thing — eyebrows drawn together in thought, bottom lip pulled inward instead of jutted out dramatically. His gaze fixes downward at his feet beneath the crystal-clear water, methodically toeing one stone over, then another, like the placement of each pebble might solve some grand puzzle.

You watch him wage his silent war of reorganization, using nothing but his ten toes as construction equipment. It's such a Luigi thing to do — finding the smallest tasks to occupy himself instead of splashing around like he usually does, trying to tempt you in.

"Bet the water feels incredible," he murmurs, more to the stones than to you. His toes have created a perfect semicircle now, a tiny amphitheater beneath the surface. "Like that lemonade your mom makes — you know, the one with mint?"

You do know.

The kind she only makes when the temperature crawls past ninety, when the air feels thick enough to chew. Like today. You can almost taste it — tart and cool and perfect — which is exactly what Luigi intended with that particular comparison, the sneak.

"You're not as subtle as you think you are," you inform him, but you're already sitting up straighter, your legs beginning to tingle from staying still too long in the sun.

The grass has left impressions on your skin, tiny crosshatched patterns that Luigi always says look like secret maps, his fingers drawing lines upon them.

He doesn't look up from his underwater construction project, but one corner of his mouth quirks upward. "Never claimed to be subtle. That's your department, avoiding the water like it's personally offended you."

"The water hasn't offended me," you say, though you draw your knees up to your chest, putting another inch between you and the shoreline. "We have a mutual understanding. It stays there, and I stay here."

"Mhm." Luigi abandons his stone circle, wading a few steps deeper until the water laps at his knees, stood there in his trunks, the cobalt blue ones that hit just above his mid-thigh. "And how's that working out for you? Enjoying your dusty patch of grass while I'm out here living like a king?"

The problem is, he does look a bit regal out there, all long limbs and easy grace, like he was born for summer days and spring water.

You've known Lu since you were both gap-toothed and gangly, but sometimes — like now — he seems to have grown into himself while you weren't looking.

Yet, your own limbs still feel too long, too awkward, like you're wearing a costume that doesn't quite fit.

Meanwhile, Luigi wears summer like a second skin, all easy movements and natural grace, as if the universe decided to polish him up while leaving you in your perpetual state of stumbling through doorways.

"A king of minnows, maybe," you counter, but you're already uncurling, letting your feet stretch toward the water's edge. Not to join him, obviously. Just to... test the temperature.

"Ah," he says softly, watching your toes creep closer, his voice taking on a funny narrators tone, an accent thrown in that sounded similar to his fathers. "The snail emerges from her shell."

"Shell-less snails are just slugs," you inform him primly, but dip one toe in anyway. The water isn't as cold as you expected — it never is, but that doesn't stop you from putting on this show every single time. "And I'm neither."

"No," Luigi agrees, dropping the accent but keeping that amused lilt in his voice. "You're more like- like one of those hermit crabs. The ones that think really hard about switching shells but then just stick with the same one anyway."

You splash water at him with your foot, and he doesn't even try to dodge. "Fuck, Lu —That's the worst analogy I've ever heard."

"Is it?" He takes a few steps backward, deeper into the water, like he's laying out a trail for you to follow. "Because you're still sitting there, thinking about coming in, just like you do every time.“

Luigi could easily remember all the days spent here, in this very body of water together — the secret collection of precious gems that were really just polished river rocks, the fossil that turned out to be an old bottle cap, and that infamous river snake from an overturned stone that had you shrieking and refusing to dive under for weeks.

"Can't be thinking about doing it if I'm already doing it, Lu." You roll your eyes, your shins now lapping gently with clean, cool water. The trees droop overhead like nature's own parasol, their leaves casting dappled shadows that dance across your shoulders.

He's quiet for a moment, watching you with an expression you can't quite read. And then. “Remember when we thought we found actual dinosaur bones here?"

"You mean the plastic fork?"

"A very convincing plastic fork."

The water feels like silk against your skin now, and you find yourself wading deeper without really meaning to. It's muscle memory, maybe — your body remembering what your mind keeps second-guessing.

"At least I wasn't the one who tried to sell it to the museum.” you remind him, the water now swirling around your waist. Each step stirs up tiny clouds of silt that disappear into the clear water.

He splashes in your direction, grinning. "We were tweleve! And Mrs. Henderson at the museum was very nice about it."

"She gave you a cookie and a lecture about scientific integrity."

"Exactly. A win-win."

You're deep enough now that you have to lift your arms to keep them dry, though you're not sure why you're bothering. Your bikini is already clinging to you, and that familiar weightless feeling is starting to take over — the one that always made you feel brave before.

"You know what your real problem is?" Luigi quips, but this time his voice is gentler. "You forgot how to play."

The words hit harder than you expect, maybe because there's no teasing in them now.

Just truth, floating there on the surface like a leaf.

"I didn't forget," you say quietly. "I just- I put it away somewhere."

The look in his eyes tells you exactly what's coming, but muscle memory kicks in before you can retreat, your arms already up in defense position as he sends a massive splash your way, the arc of water catching sunlight like scattered diamonds before it hits you full in the face.

"Luigi!" you shriek, but you're already laughing, already moving. Your soul remembers this dance even if your mind's been trying to forget it, and the water parts easily as you lunge toward him, years of practice making your movements swift and sure.

He tries to dodge, but you know all his tricks — the way he always feints left before going right, how he can't resist staying just within splashing range.

The water battle that ensues is immediate and fierce, both of you laughing and gasping, sending waves in every direction, limbs smacking into each other at times, your body trailing away from his while he charged closer.

"See?" he manages between splashes. "The Queen of minnows!”

You're about to respond when your foot slips on a smooth stone, and suddenly you're going under.

For a split second, panic flares — but then the tranquility and silence envelops you, and it feels like greeting an old friend, your eyes open underwater, seeing the filtered sunlight create shifting patterns all around you, and suddenly you remember why you used to love this so much.

When you surface, pushing wet hair from your face, Luigi is watching you with a grin, his sunglasses pushed away from his face and atop his head instead, nestled in his damp black curls. “You got your hair wet.” He gives you one last gentle splash, his grin so carved into his features it may as well be everlasting.

Luigi, the son of Marco Mangione, whose genius lay in transforming his grandfather's modest Milan carpentry shop into Mangione Artisan Living — now a name whispered in the same breath as Fendi Casa and Bottega Veneta's home collection.

When Marco married Sofia Bernardi in the 80’s, a celebrated interior designer, they moved to America, the local papers painting it as another wealthy foreigner's passing fancy — this modernist villa rising among cornfields and weathered barns.

But Marco had seen something in these hills that reminded him of Tuscany, in the calloused hands of local woodworkers that echoed his grandfather's.

The Mangione Mansion stands like a slice of northern Italy transplanted to American soil, with its stark geometries softened by groves of imported olive trees and terraced gardens.

It's a world away from your family's farmhouse, where the paint peels in honest patches and the screen door creaks a familiar welcome, yet Marco moves between these worlds with effortless grace, discussing the merits of different wood grains with your father across the fence line, or clearing out your mother's farmer's market stall of preserves, declaring each jar Perfetto, just like my Nonna's! with the same genuine warmth he uses to greet European royalty.

Luigi, who could have been pressed into private academies and dinner jackets, groomed for Ivy League legacies and country club memberships, had instead grown up alongside you in public school — though his future was cushioned by both financial security and natural brilliance.

You can't remember a time when academic excellence wasn't your north star — every assignment a stepping stone, every grade a battle in the war for your future.

Being a veterinarian wasn't just a dream, it was your escape route from the endless cycle of farm life that had worn your father's hands to calluses and bent your mother's back.

Perfect attendance since kindergarten, straight A's through AP Biology, even showing up on Senior Skip Day — just you and Lacey Williams, the would-be neurosurgeon, bent over your textbooks in an empty classroom.

Now here you both are in the water — you with your scholarship letters and student loan applications waiting at home, him with acceptance letters from Harvard and Yale gathering dust on his desk.

Two lives that should never have intersected, meeting in the middle of sun-warmed water, your shared freckles catching golden light, limbs tangling as Luigi feints another playful attack.

•

Summer buzzes by your eyeshot like a cicada in a hurry, the season winding down with cooler, longer nights and shorter, blazing hot days.

August comes barreling through like it always does, hot and sticky air clinging to your skin as you sit with Luigi upon the sloped side of the barn, a Birds Eye view of the farm, this very spot the first place the two of you had tried smoking weed, the very first time you ogled at a traumatizing porn everyone at school was talking about — this spot, worn from years of shared moments together is the very place you create some distance.

For the first time.

“I think I want my own party this year.”

The words land like a stone in still water, ripples of hurt crossing Luigi's face before he can master his expression.

For a moment, he looks eight years old again, standing in the tall grass with his first American birthday cake — the one your mom made because his parents were still learning that birthdays here meant homemade frosting, not elegant catered affairs and grand garden parties.

"Oh," he says, and it's the smallest you've ever heard his voice. "Yeah, of course. That makes sense. We’re turning twenty-two. Not eight anymore.” His smile doesn't reach his eyes, hands fidgeting with the bracelet you’d made him years and years ago — the same nervous tell he's had since childhood. "Actually, Ma’s been saying I should do something more — you know, formal this year anyway."

The lie sits between you like a third person.

Luigi, who once convinced his parents to move his elaborate garden party to your barn because you had the flu has never cared for formal anything.

You can see him rebuilding his walls, brick by careful brick, protecting himself the way he never had to with you before.

"Send me pictures though?" he adds lightly, but there's at least fifteen years of shared candles and off-key, bi-lingual singing wrapped in that request, fifteen years of your mom's chocolate cake and his ma’s tiramisu side by side on the same table.

"Luigi, it's not-" you start, then pause, because it is exactly what he thinks it is. A separation. A gentle fracture. "I just need to figure out who I am without- without being part of a matched set. Does that make sense?"

The words feel clumsy in your mouth, inadequate to explain this need that's been growing since your acceptance letter arrived.

You watch him nod too quickly, the way he does when he's processing something that hurts.

The same way he looked when Benny, one of the milking cows had passed three summers ago, or the way he looked when you told him you couldn’t go on the Mangione trip to Italy, desperately needing the vet clinic hours.

"My party's probably just going to be pizza with my study group anyway," you continue, trying to make it sound smaller than it is, even though you've already planned every detail — your first real birthday party that isn't shaped around accommodating both your worlds. "And you should do something spectacular. Twenty-two is a weird number, but you could make it your thing.“

He laughs, but it's his polite laugh, the one he uses at his father's business dinners. "Maybe I'll rent out that new rooftop place in the city," he says, playing along with this sudden pretense that the two of you haven't spent months quietly planning your joint party like every year before. "Very grown-up."

The space between you fills with unspoken memories — dual parties with increasingly ridiculous themes, the year you both got chicken pox and celebrated in quarantine together, or the year his mother hired a magician who pulled you both on stage as assistants.

Fifteen years of wishes and synchronized candle-blowing, and you’ve put an abrupt end to it, with not so much as a warning.

"You're not mad?" you ask, even though you can see he is — not angry-mad, but hurt-mad, the kind that makes his shoulders tight and his smile too careful.

He stands abruptly, brushing invisible dirt from his shorts. "Mad? Nah, come on. We're not kids anymore." The words come out just a touch too fast, too light. "Actually, I should head back. Papa wanted to discuss something about the company tonight."

It's barely seven, and Marco's in New York City until Thursday — you both know this. But Luigi's already stepping back, that practiced social smile firmly in place, the one he uses when he needs to retreat but is too polite to say so.

"Night," he calls over his shoulder once he scales the side of the barn down to the grass again, hands shoved deep in his pockets.

You watch him walk away, his usual easy stride now stiff and measured, leaving you alone with just the sound of the bullfrogs near the pond, and the chickens settling in their coops for the night.

The sunset feels colder somehow, and you wrap your arms around your knees, trying to convince yourself this is what growing up looks like as you sit there until the mosquitoes start biting, watching the space where Luigi disappeared and wondering if this is what independence is supposed to feel like — this hollow victory that tastes nothing like freedom and everything like loss.

•

The late August evening slowly begins to melt into night, the air carrying whispers of autumn though summer still reigns.

You breathe in deep — catching hints of hay being baled in distant fields, leaves just beginning their subtle shift from green to gold, and lake water evaporating off sun-warmed skin. The pontoon boat hums steadily beneath you, loaded with friends sprawled across every available surface, their laughter echoing across the darkening water.

You'd done your best to prepare them all, carefully explaining the separate celebrations to avoid awkward questions.

But Luigi's absence feels like a shadow you can't shake — in the pause after every joke, in the empty space at the boat's stern where he always sat, in the way conversations drift and fade without his easy charm to bridge them.

You're learning that some people leave gaps too precisely shaped to fill, and you catch yourself waiting for sounds that aren't coming —the full-bodied laughter that usually ricochets across the lake, the constant stream of Luigi's commentary that made even silence feel alive.

No one's standing at the boat's edge, goading others into increasingly ridiculous diving contests. The absence of these things sits heavy in your chest, like missing the last step on a familiar staircase.

"Good for you for doing your own thing this year," Mia offers, wine sloshing in her solo cup as she gestures vaguely. "Must be nice not having to compromise on everything for once."

Not really, you think.

The evening settles into dinner in the back garden, strings of lights casting warm halos over familiar faces — relatives, neighbors, friends who'd trickled in as the day aged and as if on cue, the peaceful scene splinters at the sound of tires on gravel and a booming voice that makes your stomach drop.

"Where's Luigi?!"

Cousin Tony's borrowed truck sits askew on the path, driver's door still swinging open like an afterthought.

He bounds toward you, one arm clutching what's clearly a wine bottle wrapped in what looks like yesterday's newspaper, his face bright with the anticipation of seeing his favorite duo.

The sight makes something in your chest twist.

He’s always treated you both as his own blood, never drawing lines between family and chosen family.

You're crushed into a bear hug before you can dodge it, his familiar cologne mixing with engine grease as you try to breathe through compressed lungs, but he’s still calling for Luigi over your head, each shout making the other guests shift uncomfortably in their seats.

"He's somewhere in the city, Tone," you manage to wheeze out.

Your phone burns in your pocket, where Luigi's latest Instagram story sits unopened — some rooftop view you're deliberately not thinking about.

"What'da ya mean?" His grip loosens just enough for you to see his face fall, confusion creeping into his features like a slowly spreading stain.

"We're... trying something different this year," you say, words feeling clumsy as you glance over your shoulder at the laden table — a spread that still unconsciously includes all of Luigi's favorites alongside your own. The sight of his mother's recipe for stuffed shells sitting next to your grandmother's pierogies makes your throat tight.

"Well, is he at least comin' later?"

"No." The word falls between you like a stone. "He couldn't cancel his reservation without losing the booking fee, so I just told him it was fi-"

"No, no, mia cara," Tony drags his hands through his hair, face crumpling like you've just told him the world is ending. "Potrebbe essere l'ultimo!" The words tumble out in his rushed native tongue, his distress making him forget himself.

"You just said that in Italian." Your voice sounds far away, even to your own ears, like it's coming from the bottom of a well.

"Shit — It could be your last time, cuginetta." Tony's sigh seems to come from his bones as he pulls out his phone, cursing when he sees the no-service icon.

"My last time?"

Tony lifts his head slowly from his phone screen, eyes finding yours with a weight that makes your stomach drop. "What — oh, Dio — do you mean to say he has not told you?"

"Told me...?” You brace yourself, chest aching with a sudden, sharp regret for all those breakfast lessons with Luigi's nonna, her patient voice guiding you through pronunciations you'd carelessly let slip away between coffee and lunch.

"He got big'a job in the big city," Tony's hands sweep upward, as if trying to encompass the vastness of a metropolis that stretches far beyond any gesture could capture. "Saying bye-bye forever to smelly farm." His hands fall, and his expression softens into something dangerously close to pity. "Sorry.”

"Leaving? Like — he's moving there?" The words feel strange in your mouth.

You're standing in the same garden where you and Luigi once buried treasure maps at age eight, where you learned to cartwheel together at twelve, where you shared your first illegal beer at sixteen — and suddenly it all feels like archaeological evidence of something that's already gone.

"That's where zio Marco is now, making sure Princess Luigi has all the things he need there for — uh—" Tony lapses into rapid Italian, but you've already stopped listening, the rest of his words fading into white noise.

You're hung up on the present tense of it all — Luigi’s father is there now, apartment hunting, setting up a brand new life while you stand here in your shared history, surrounded by people who apparently knew more about Luigi's future than you did.

The realization hits very suddenly.

Luigi was moving away, and he spoke not a word of it to you.

Tony manages a plate of food before borrowing your landline, desperate to track down Luigi in the sprawling city and when his truck finally crunches back down the gravel path, you feel it like a physical wound — as if he's taking a piece of you with him, torn straight from your core, yet, you maintain your composure with award-winning precision, a smile fixed firmly in place as guests filter away into the darkness.

You go through the motions, accepting kisses on cheeks, graciously receiving gifts labeled with just your name - no more Dynamic Duo or Thing 1 and 2 scrawled in familiar handwriting.

You help clear the garden, stack chairs, wash dishes that held food Luigi would have fought you for the leftovers of. You kiss your father's cheek goodnight, and tell your still-bustling mother you're heading out for some stargazing.

It's not entirely a lie.

You do end up beneath the stars, though you hadn't exactly planned to collapse here by the waterfront, where the distant dock creaks its lonely song, the splash of jumping fish and the bold croaking of nearby bullfrogs barely register — sounds that would normally make you jump now feel as distant as satellite signals.

You're lost in the undertow of your thoughts, barely noticing the warm tears tracking down your neck until your t-shirt is damp with evidence of a grief you didn't know you needed to prepare for — the silence holds you, envelopes you, and you’re almost convinced you can disappear here until-

"Hey, stranger."

His voice cuts through the cricket symphony like a knife, and you freeze, tears still wet on your face.

You don't turn around — can't turn around — because you know exactly what he'll look like: silhouetted against the moons full and distant glow, wearing that stupid designer jacket he bought last month that suddenly makes too much sense.

Big City boy.

The grass whispers beneath his feet as he approaches, each step measured like he's greeting a spooked animal.

It's funny — he used to just crash down beside you, all elbows and laughter.

When did you become something he had to be careful with?

"Tone called me," he says softly, still standing. "Said he found you but couldn't find me." There's a pause, heavy with unspoken words. "Told me other things, too."

The lake laps at the shore, a steady rhythm that used to calm you both on countless nights like this.

Now it just sounds like a countdown.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Your voice sounds small against the vastness of the lake, broken and confused, betrayed and disbelieving.

"Would it have changed anything?" His words come sharp, defensive. "Would you have suddenly decided to stay?"

"That's not fair."

"Fair?" The laugh that escapes him is bitter and unfamiliar. "You want to talk about fair? I watched you apply to every college more than fifty miles away. Watched you light up talking about leaving, about getting out. Never once asking—" He cuts himself off, his gaze turning up instead at the trees that sway and rustle in the midnight air, a chill taking your spine.

"Asking what, Lu?”

"If I wanted to come with you." The words hang in the darkness between you. "If maybe I had dreams too, ones that didn't involve watching you disappear."

"I never said you couldn't-“

"What do you think I was going to do, wait around forever?" His voice cracks at the end, brittle and broken. "God, I've spent my whole life orbiting you like a personal Pluto. I don't even remember my life before you." He paces now like an agitated zoo animal behind a sheath of thin glass, just out of reach. “And yet, you expect me to stay here without you? While you go to college, make your own dreams come true?"

The moonlight catches his face as he turns, and you see something break in his expression. "I would have waited. I would have always waited, but fuck—" His hands tremble as they rake through his hair. "You've pushed and pushed and pushed me away. Every college application, every excited story about your future somewhere else, the party -“ he watches as you stand, your posture ridged and nervous, but attentive.

"Lu, please -“

"So what do I do?" His voice drops lower, trembling. "I have to think of myself too. I have to accept that we won't always be this way." He watches as you scrub your hands over your face, your unsteady legs carrying you off the dock.

The cool, damp grass beneath your feet becomes an anchor, something real in a moment that feels anything but.

He follows, his body angled toward yours like a compass finding north. "But it didn't have to be like this." His voice softens to barely above a whisper, his dress shoes crushing the grass with each step.

"Well, what exactly did you expect?" You whirl around, wiping furiously beneath your eyes, moonlight catching the tears on your cheeks that refuse to be unseen. "We were going to play in the river forever? Did you think we'd just find our way without ever trying?" The words come out harder than you mean them, sharp with the kind of anger that's really just fear in disguise.

"I- you-" Luigi's voice breaks.

His eyes are bloodshot, the bridge of his nose red from earlier tears hastily wiped away in the party bathroom. In the half-light, he looks both younger and older than your shared twenty-two years — a boy trying to hold onto something slipping through his fingers, a man facing his first real loss.

"You know, maybe it might have been that easy for you, Lu." Your eyes drift to the Mangione Mansion, its windows gleaming like jewels against the dark hills, an anomaly among the endless cornfields. "You never had to lift a finger — it always just..." You gesture vaguely, bitterly. "Fell into place."

The words taste like copper in your mouth, sharper for how unfair they feel.

Because he's always shared everything.

Those lavish family dinners where his mother insisted you sit next to her, those delicate necklaces from Rome that he'd drape around your neck with careful fingers, those shopping trips where his nonna would press dresses into your arms with a conspirator's wink.

He's never once made you feel like charity.

But there are some things that can't be shared, some advantages that run deeper than generosity.

While you pieced together credits between evening classes and online courses, fighting for every inch of progress, he'd come home rolling his eyes at another Harvard letter, another Yale recruiter calling.

You take a deep breath, feeling the summer air fill your lungs, and air that smells like it always has, like corn silk and cut grass and the all-consuming night. "Did you think we'd just stay here in our bubble, Lu?" Your voice softens despite yourself. "The only place we've ever known?"

All he can do is stand there, helpless, caught between a nod and denial.

His expression crumples into something raw and pleading — such a far cry from the boy who, just last week, had painted patterns across your skin with river mud, both of you laughing until your sides hurt.

The same boy whom you could communicate with without even speaking to, who knew exactly how you took your coffee, who was born the day before you, and who could read your silences like a book he'd memorized; yet now he's looking at you like you're written in a language he never learned to speak.

"No." The word propels you forward, feet moving before your brain catches up.

His face softens into something unbearable — like watching a star collapse in slow motion, finally understanding that this isn't just another one of your theoretical late-night talks about the future.

His carefully constructed composure crumbles, leaving behind something young and scared and achingly real.

"I love you." The words fall from his lips like muscle memory, like breathing, like the thousands of times before — whispered against your hair during movies, shouted across parking lots, mumbled sleepily during long car rides. But now they land heavy between you, a weight pressing against your chest until it hurts to breathe. "I always have, and I always will—"

"No. No, Lu." Your voice cracks on his name, and your pace quickens, bare feet crushing grass beneath desperate steps.

But he matches you stride for stride.

“My life has been so intertwined with yours, when you began to pull away - I- I panicked,” He was rambling now, quick and out of breath but keeping up with you nonetheless, the two of you navigating the vast property, moon and starlight the only thing guiding your path. “I settled on what I knew would be easiest,”

“That’s the problem.” You stop again to look at him, your chest heaving. “You don’t need to settle, Lu — you’re brilliant, you’re so fucking brilliant-“ he grabs your wrists gently, taking several steps to close the gap between you.

"I have never settled on you." Luigi's voice goes rigid, cracking in the middle like ice breaking over deep water. Each word carries the weight of years — shared secrets, dreams whispered under blanket forts, and promises made in tree houses. "You have always been my first option."

You catch your breath, the familiar warmth of his hands on your wrists suddenly feeling like shackles.

Your head shakes, slow and deliberate, as you try to pull back — but his grip steadfast remains. "How would you know of the other options?" The question comes out softer than you mean it to, weighted with everything you've both been too scared to say. "Do you know yourself without me?”

"I don't want to know myself without you."

"Luigi. Please stop-“ You wrench your wrists from his loosened grip, your feet carrying you forward through the night but he follows, like an echo you can't shake, like a shadow that refuses to fade with distance.

His words tumble out faster now, chasing the shrinking space between you and home, visible through the wavering corn stalks like a lighthouse warning of rough water ahead. "I know I'm not — I know I'm not Matthew Williams, or that guy that works the stables near the Bradshaws. And I know I’m not a perfect man, but—"

You stop once again, so abruptly this time he nearly collides with you, turning to face this strange new version of Luigi — one you've never seen before, one who wears his insecurities like an ill-fitting suit.

He's brave, you'll give him that, but he's also terrified in a way that makes your chest ache.

This boy who's never had to compete for anything in his life, suddenly listing off names like entries in a contest he thinks he's losing.

"You stop that." Your finger jabs at his chest, connecting with the expensive fabric of his jacket. "You are the most-the most magnificent person I have ever met, Luigi. And you're not perfect, no-“ You swallow against the rising bile, against the irony of having to defend him to himself when you're the one walking away. "But you're honest, and you're good — a goddamn great deal too good for me."

The last part comes out like a confession, like something you've carried so long it's carved itself into your bones — the real reason you're running, the fear that someday he'll wake up and realize it too.

The night holds its breath around you, your ragged exhales mixing with his in the space between heartbeats, and the trees shiver their leaves like witnesses to your undoing, crickets falling silent as if they too understand the gravity of this moment — this closing act.

"But-“ You step into his warmth, drawn forward like a moth to flame, even now, knowing it would burn. You’re close enough to catch the familiar scent of his cologne mixing with fresh-cut grass and summer sweat. Close enough to see the moonlight catching in his eyelashes. Close enough to break both your hearts properly. "I can't love you the way you deserve to be loved."

The words tear themselves from your throat like barbed wire, each syllable drawing blood.

Your stomach twists inside out, acid creeping up your throat again, "I can't love you like that. I’m - I’m so, so sorry, Luigi — I just - I can’t,

His hands find your face with the reverence of a prayer, thumbs brushing across your cheekbones like he's trying to memorize the geography of your skin. "Listen to me," he whispers, his voice thick with desperation. "Listen."

The tenderness in his touch nearly breaks you — the way his fingers tremble against your jaw, the gentle circles he traces beneath your ears, the familiar callous on his right thumb from his tree-climbing habit.

His forehead drops to rest against yours, and you can feel his breath hitching, unsteady and warm against your lips.

"You've already loved me better than anyone else ever could," Luigi's voice cracks, splintering like ice in early spring. "You love me exactly as I am — not the heir, not the prodigy, not the Mangione name." His hands slide into your hair, “You have loved me even though I can’t remember to help feed the hens, but I can recite every constellation. And you’ve loved me even though I name every cull cow — even though you think it’s cruel.”

He pulls back just enough to meet your eyes, and the raw hope in his gaze is almost unbearable. "Please," he breathes, the word more air than sound. "Please don't decide for both of us what kind of love I deserve." His thumbs catch the tears you didn't realize were falling, smearing them across your cheeks like war paint. "Let me choose.”

“Then choose someone else!” You shake your hands at him, helpless and wishing to disappear. “I - I’m so unsure of myself - every goddamn thing I do, Luigi. I break everything, I’m useless at being a homemaker. I’m awkward, I’m a black sheep, even all the way out here.”

You aren’t made for the big city like he is.

The moonlight catches in his dark eyes, turning them to liquid as they search yours. "I don't need perfect love. I don't need textbook romance or fairy tale." His voice breaks, raw with honesty. "I just need you. But - but I can’t live like this forever" He’s speaking faster than you’ve ever heard the smooth-talking, easy going Luigi say anything.

You try to turn away, to escape the weight of his words, but his touch holds you steady — gentle but unwavering. "Luigi — let me the fuck-“

"No," he breathes, the word ghosting across your lips. "No, don't push me away because you think you're protecting me. Don't make decisions about what I can handle." His fingers thread through your hair, cradling the back of your head. "I choose this. I choose the messy parts, the broken parts, the parts you think are unlovable. I choose all of it."

I am stopping this here. Love you 💕

[charmedreincarnation]

I shifted using the void state!

I'm getting straight to the point because I know people don't like long success stories, but I used these two posts to finally shift to my desired reality and manifest my dream life.

Rotten’s Practical Guide to Shifting Realities

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zgrhCYyct7xV4j7d7qYFcoO8bAMx5Jqdb3NGoO81Oqs/edit

Reddit Post: The Power of the Void State

https://www.reddit.com/r/shiftingrealities/s/XMIo5TPYlM

Anyways, when I learned about the void state on Reddit, I was instantly captivated. I mean, who wouldn't be? The idea of not only using it for shifting but also manifesting my dream life for myself and my family felt like a dream come true. That's when I came across the second post I shared about the void state, and eventually, the first document I shared. They were incredibly informative and completely changed my perspective on shifting and the law of the universe.

I went on to stalk many of the recommended success stories on Reddit, exploring posts and comment sections that mentioned you. You seemed to be a common denominator in their journeys, helping them shift or guiding them with your posts. It made me happy to see your positive influence, even though your posts were from years ago and it seemed like you no longer have an account. Unfortunately, many other creators' posts were either inactive or banned due to Reddit's strict rules which is really annoying.

However, someone made a post about you, and one of your friends ended up commenting with your Tumblr account. So, I gathered a lot of valuable information from your account and a few others (like Fleur, Pink, Rem, Sexy Dream Girl, etc.) on Tumblr.

I must say, the Tumblr shifting and void community is miles ahead of Reddit and Amino. I was shocked that I hadn't come across this community before. Reddit is just starting to talk about the Law of assumption and the void, whereas you guys have been immersed in it for years. I even encountered some misconceptions on Reddit, where people still think the void can only be used for shifting and not for waking up in a whole new life. 🙄

Regardless, finding this app was the motivation I needed, and I discovered so much valuable information. I ended up using your theta wave method, combined with the first Reddit post I sent, to enter the void and shift to my dr. It's truly mind-blowing how easy it all was.

I can vouch for this process. All you need are the two Reddit posts I shared, as the guide is highly regarded within the shifting community, along with a few trustworthy Tumblr bloggers. I've been part of the shifting community since 2017, so I've seen it all, and I managed to shift within just two and a half weeks of finding these resources. Even though I was struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts, I realized it doesn't have to hinder your journey.

I wanted to share my experience here, and I might make a post on Reddit too. However, they have become stricter with success stories due to anti-troll measures, and it takes weeks to even months for anything to be processed. So, I wanted to share my journey here first.

I also recommend this: https://www.reddit.com/r/shiftingrealities/s/daFCQdyHim because it helped me understand what shifting really is. Manifesting too!

Lastly I'm 26 years old, and I've noticed that Reddit tends to have a more adult audience compared to Tumblr. At first, it felt nice to be surrounded by fellow adults discussing shifting. On the other hand, seeing Tumblr mostly filled with teens and younger adults made me wonder if it's easier for them, especially without the weight of responsibilities that often come with age.

But let me tell you, age is not a factor that determines our success in shifting. Whether you're 13 or 55, it doesn't matter. This is something we can all engage in, no matter our age.

Sure, there might be some challenges that come with getting older. As we accumulate more life experiences, doubts tend to creep in, and we become more logical. But guess what? Those doubts and logical thinking don't define our ability to shift realities. They are simply hurdles for us to overcome.

Hi love! I've spent some time going through all the resources you shared, and they've been incredibly helpful! Actually i have seen that guide in so many places, and it's truly enlightening. Thank you for sharing these amazing tools with us!

And yes, I wholeheartedly agree with what you said. age and doubt really do have no place in our journey they really don’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

I used to engage with @theastralplaneandbeyond5487 on Amino and Reddit too. He also has an informative YouTube channel and is in his 50s, I believe. His experiences and insights are rlly helpful and further show that age is just a number in this journey.

His journey showed me that we can do whatever we we want , regardless of our age. It's a beautiful reminder that we're all capable of creating and experiencing whatever we want 🩵

Also omg my Reddit era in 2021 was so fun. I’m glad it’s still helping people though my views have definitely evolved :D!

[radiance1]

de-aged Danny is one of my babies,

Shit hits the fan with the giw and Danny is super injured and Clockwork has to mess with some things so Danny doesn’t return to his core being vulnerable and sends him millions of miles away to Gotham and in the process Danny becomes 6/10 years old and is weeks healed due to being smaller and costing less ectoplasm but is still achy, Danny is steered to Jason’s apartment where he just got off his shift and then his is the twist! Jason is mute due to an accident with the joker and Batman (batman unintentionally causing his muteness) and out of reflex of a child on his counter hand first into a box of Cheerios let’s put a exasperated noise of flames and a lighter and Danny responds with his own spark of electricity and Jason is shocked (hehe) that Danny can understand and even communicate can he just lets out everything he’s been doing since “holy shit I can talk to someone normally” and then he realizes this child has the same scar as him and is pissed but Danny calms him down and calms the pits and he’s like “okay you’re mine now shit- I’m like Bruce- no. I’ll think about this later-“ Danny is super cute and Jason is having a field day with parent hood and Jason gives Danny a comm for when he goes out but he’s only allowed to speak in ghost speak and the rest are confused when Jason sprints away and they follow to see Danny in Jason’s arms being lulled to sleep with a man on the ground knocked out or dead who knows not Jason because it was shoot & punch and ask questions later and then Danny says sleepily “Oh your daddy’s brothers, hi” like it’s normal to meet family in this situation and Jason puts him to bed before signing “Say anything to Bruce and you will never be called uncle or attend his birthday in your life.”

Bruce only finds out when Jason some how ends up super injured and can’t sign and Danny translates (no editing just straight he said fucking hell) and introduces himself as Danny Todd, Bruce privately cried a little

The Joker catches wind of Red Hood's son and as you know, the Joker loves breaking people, both physically and mentally.

So he tries that shit with Danny, and because this is highly targeted specifically towards Red Hood. He even uses the method he killed Red Hood with when he was just a little itty-bitty robin.

Don't even talk about time because the entire Batfam suddenly gained fucking superspeed (They don't, but at the rate they're going they might as well have it), find the location the Joker is holding Danny at and descend on the Joker like a pack of starving wolves catching their prey.

Like, no joke (heh). They all throw straight hands; Joker gets tag teamed to hell and back by every one of them and none of them are holding back.

Later the Joker is on the ground a mangled mess, passed the fuck out and Batman just decides to go "Peace" and leaves him for dead without looking back, takes Danny (With Jason's explicit permission) and drives off in the Batmobile to Batburger because Danny was hungry.

Literally everyone else:

Joker just gets absolutely violated even further than what he already got, now that Batman's gone and very much left him for dead there ain't no one here to even try and stop them.

Gets beaten so hard he regains consciousness, and that guy still finds some reason to laugh.

A couple hours the Joker is just a mangled corpse with an inch of life in em and they give Jason the honor of finishing him off because not only was he the one to kill him, but he also tried to kill his son. Joker gets a bullet through his skull with both Danny and Bruce none the wiser because Bruce suddenly found himself on babysitting duty.

Danny was fully well and capable of getting out of that situation on his own, and he would've, but the Batfam was literally just faster in getting to the Joker than he was.

And he was literally with the Joker.

[friendlyshaped]

WRITEBLR INTRO :D

hello! my name is scottie! i am a 20 yr. old nb college student trying to write a fantasy series (among other minor projects!), looking for active writers to be mutuals and interact with (bonus if ur open to beta reading! or want a beta reader!) :D ask/tag open! i love talking to people, so don't be afraid to say hi :)

my current focus is coming-of-age queer fantasy, but i also focus on dystopian themes, horror, romance, and a sprinkle of futuristic sci-fi

CURRENT WIPS!

mya laine and the world of wonder (main)

generally, about creation! coping with being created, and then in turn having to create yourself. also, because i only knonw how to write two things, almost every relationship in this is a lesbian relationship! i am currently trying to make it a bit less Only Lesbians, but also? who fucking cares if it is a fantasy coming of age with literally only lesbian relationships. like... i dont? i'm well aware that i am biased but i still dont care

dehisce

(of a pod or seed vessel, or a cut or wound) gape or burst open.

also lesbians! contains time shenanigans and dragons. set in a world sort of exactly like the Modern Pre-Crown World in fionna and cake. i reference this because my main lady penny is a silly little history buff and decides to go on this expedition to find more information on a lost goddess, and ends up getting entangled with time. after a long, emotional trek that goes wrong more times than it goes right. penny somehow manages to get sent thousands of years in the future when the world has been ravaged by magic and godly power. and then she meets a girl who has a dragon and a dude that does everything she says, and more shit happens!

untitled crime story (now: unorthodox methods!)

i will not stop calling it untitled crime story!!! but i had to come up with a silly and catchy title because i chose this as a premise for the feature film script i'm writing for class. but untitled crime story i'll remember you

you guessed it.... lesbians.............. but they're exes with sooo much unspoken beef and they go off-grid together anyways so neither of them get put in prison ??? it's in a world where magic is normal and a bit frowned upon, now getting out of have because there's a global shortage of the one drug that suppresses magical powers. and this girl's ex calls her one night! the fun ex---she's supposed to be fun!! but she sounds super terrified and serious and chaos ensues! lesbians running from magical authorities and having to face their very long, very loud shared history.

finally edited it! this post just doubles as my wip masterpost :) i do not feel like doing a whole new post i am just here to have fun

ok <3 thats kinda it. thank you for reading!

[toskarin]

how did you get started making music, tools-wise?

I've talked about this a bit before and I don't necessarily recommend doing this, so skip the following two paragraphs and go right to the one under the break if you actually want the method I recommend

I lied to a girl I liked from my school and told her that, because I could play guitar I could also play piano, so I could teach her to play piano. both of these statements were lies.

I had to panic and learn both guitar and piano one week ahead of the lessons I was giving her as an excuse to hang out. so I self-taught in a haze of panic and "maybe she'll like me" (she did not) (but she kind of did) (but she was bicurious) (but she was wishy-washy on if she wanted to get together and her parents didn't like me) (and her parents were homophobic) (I think she might have texted me at one point years down the line to tell me she had a girlfriend but it was after I deleted our text history and I'm chronically unable to remember to put people's names into my contacts so who knows)

but that's all an aside. that's a bad method.

anyway if you want to start making music in earnest, doing what I did when I got serious about making songs instead of trying to impress girls whose parents wanted to destroy me with their minds here's a better answer

go acquire FL Studio. it's apparently really easy to do this because people have been acquiring it for years, or so I've heard. FL is good for learning because you've got 20 years worth of free tutorials available to you on youtube to dig through and plenty of stock vsts to play with out of the box

FL Studio is, realistically, the only tool you actually need to start making music. you could get away with less, but it's what I used, and as long as you don't pick up Specific Bad Habits, your experience with it will transfer to other DAWs if you decide to switch it later

that's all, really

if you go this route, the golden rule I'm going to impart on you right now is that you need to have a limiter on your songs. the default FL studio song templates have one, so you should keep it until you know enough to know why you might adjust something like that

it doesn't matter if it sounds fine in the editor without a limiter. everyone thinks it's not a big deal at the time, but as you get more experienced, there's literally nothing short of getting in legal trouble that you'll regret more than realising that your old work is almost entirely unsalvageable because you didn't put a limiter on it and now half of the audio is just lost data to clipping

I'm gonna put a few more recommendations for things I've used, just so you can consider them if you need something else to chew on. everything past this point is entirely optional and you'll do just fine with FL Studio alone. in fact, probably don't worry about everything below the line

-=-

items marked with [F] are free.

DIGITAL AUDIO WORKSTATIONS THAT AREN'T FL

for tracker-based editing and chiptunes, use Renoise. you'll either love or hate trackers, and while they have a steeper learning curve than piano roll DAWs, they might come more naturally to you. I personally think that Renoise is a lot of fun to use. it kinda has an "addictive" quality to it, as funny as that is to say

for quickly sketching songs, use [F]Jummbox. it's an html workstation (multiplatform!) that writes your sketches to a url, meaning it's pretty easy to collaborate on musical sketches. Jummbox is good for making chiptune style instrumentals, but what makes it especially accessible is the fact that it works on a piano roll system, which will be familiar to you if you're working in FL

for writing sheet music, I recommend starting with [F]Musescore. I'll warn you right now that there aren't really any good notation editors and you're making lesser-of-evils decisions when you pick any of them, but it's probably the best compromise out there right now. it's the one I use when I need to hand something to a physical musician. you can also export pieces as midi, although there's better ways to do that lol

-

VSTs

if you can acquire Pianoteq, do that. if you feel uncomfortable with acquiring it, [F]Keyzone Classic is free and can sound pretty nice with a bit of work, but you really have to learn to work with it

if your workstation can handle it performance-wise, go pick up [F]Vital - Spectral Warping Wavetable Synth. there's tons of free presets for this out there and it sounds good. cool synth. Serum: Advanced Wavetable Synthesizer is also good and has plenty of presets, but it's on the pricy side, so consider how comfortable you are with [finding a friend to buy it for you]

[F]Decent Sampler doesn't do much out of the box, because it's just a tool for playing sample banks, but if you go to [F]Pianobook, you can find tons of weird and fun sample packs of just about everything you can imagine. sounds derived from folk instruments, industrial equipment, lego sets, stylophones, choirs, whatever. incredibly useful.

Valhalla VintageVerb. this is the reverb plugin. you want this one. [F]Valhalla Super Massive is also good but it's more focused on alien-sounding reverb effects and enormous spaces, so it's kind of got a niche use case and you should be a little careful with it

if you've heard a lo-fi hip hop song on youtube, it probably used [F]iZotope Vinyl. this one can save you a lot of time if you're going for that sound because it comes with all the little vinyl flourishes outside of compression (like dust crackling) that you'd otherwise have to add yourself

[F]Genny VST is advertised as giving a genesis/megadrive sound, but what actually makes it shine is that it's an actual synth emulating the YM2612 and SN76489 sound chips. this means you can create your own sounds that work within those specs, which is a lot of fun! definitely beats just using samples, if you ask me

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HARSH VSTS THAT I PERSONALLY LIKE BUT WHICH ALSO MIGHT !!HURT!! YOU. SO BE VERY CAREFUL USING THESE.

[F]Tritik Krush is a bitcrushing plugin. it does a good job of bitcrushing and downsampling. I use it a lot in my songs, but you've really gotta know how to keep this one under control, because it's fully capable of making painful sounds on accident and can completely devour your mix

[F]FSA Latcher is a gorgeous noisebox. it screams in horrible ways and makes dying machine noises in various colours. this is the musical equivalent of working with radioactive material, so be extremely careful using this in anything you don't want to hurt the listener's ears

girlfriend just told me I have to recommend [F]Noise Engineering Ruina to you if I'm making a category with this heading. I don't personally use it, but she likes it (she's better at music than I am) and it's free, so you should go pick it up. "it annihilates sounds very deliciously" (maybe I should use it)

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hope that helps a bit!

[science-lings]

More info on the options below the cut

1- My guy just lost his job and has to live out of his old office there's no way he can be allowed to adopt Trucy immediately, but if he had a rich husband who lives overseas and lets them technically commit fraud by moving into his old apartment during social worker visits... that would be much easier. Edgeworth isn't against being a little underhanded in his methods with the law and he has witnessed Phoenix with the Feys so if an infamous attorney were to adopt a child left behind by a tragic trial, he'd be so glad it was Phoenix. That guy has been reeking dad energy for years. It's also important to note that no one doubted the authenticity of their relationship since they went to go sign the papers because most people who have seen them already assumed that they were together. They don't have to try to convince anyone.

2- The things they call each other are so important to me, as kids they're Miles and Phoenix/Nick, in court they're Mr. Edgeworth and Mr. Wright, outside of court but still in a professional setting they're Edgeworth and Wright, when they're flirting they're back to Miles and Phoenix, but when they're insufferably flirting, Pheonix is 'Mr. Edgeworth' and Miles is 'Mr. Wright' They do this before they get married, both legally and actually.

3- They would be so funny on a reality tv show or some kind of game show, if their motive is doing something better than the other, they will put their whole pussies into whatever that thing is, even if it's like the great british baking show and Phoenix is the only one who can kind of bake. If they get to work together they're insane, put these assholes in an escape room and they will fuck that shit up. With Miles, who learned how to pick locks, and Phoenix, who got used to puzzles when working with Professor Layton, they would speedrun an escape room.

4- idk Pheonix just seems like he gets super affectionate with the people he loves, he kisses Trucys forehead/head so constantly it's habitual for him to pop off her hat to smooch her scalp and replace it right after. I also think it would be funny if he was so unprofessional about his love for Edgeworth except when they're in court but that's because they have to stand like twenty feet away from each other. Edgeworth turns red every time but he rarely protests, at least not seriously.

5- I just think they should be each other's 'oh shit' moment because that is funny to me. Phoenix didn't really realize he was attracted to men, at least in that capacity until that newspaper article and Miles had accepted that he was aro until he caught feelings he thought he was immune to. They both deal with it so well... /s

6- Connected to my hc that lawyers in the AA universe get kind of a celebrity status, but both Phoenix and Miles are so offline that they are completely unaware of it. Maya and Trucy and Kay especially are definitely not unaware and they think it's so funny. They contribute to the rumors. There are Edgeworth and Phoenix fancams made from court footage set to kpop. Apollo had a Phoenix Wright stan account and he used to fight the PW haters on twitter before he actually met the guy. He forgot the password so he can't delete it and it's only a matter of time before someone connects the dots. Anyway they trend on twitter every time they meet in court like when a new season of a show comes out and the fanbase goes bonkers.

7- obviously they call and message each other but they both think it's nostalgic to send letters, and Phoenix likes having a reason to send physical pictures from when they were kids since Miles wasn't allowed to keep any of that in the Von Karma household. Edgeworth usually sends sweets from whatever country he's in for Trucy.

8- I personally think that Phoenix has more of that kitten look but I was recently reminded of how often in the of trilogy when ppl have to tell him to put those things away. He can weaponize his big brown eyes and Miles pretends to be unaffected but he's weak to it just like everyone else. He has that kitty vibe, he asks for things by looking really pathetic and sad and it works in his favor every time.

9- Phoenix is the type of guy to fall asleep during most movies if he isn't judging it intently or particularly interested and when they were kids they tried to binge more than one samurai movie and Phoenix fell asleep before the first one ended. That official art just makes him look like such a sleepy guy. Again the kitty energy returns, he's a big napper.

10- these bitches are so good at arguing, but they both want to win so it takes forever to decide on things that actually don't matter that much. If they can't decide on a restaurant to go to for a date they won't finish arguing their case about their preferred place to go until after they close. They never yell at each other or get too emotionally invested in a lot of things but they will draw that shit out and take out evidence and witness testimony if it helps their case. Sometimes it gets so extensive that they have to pull out the whiteboard/ corkboard. Just as long as it's presented like a court case it will be so well communicated between them so they take advantage of that because or else they kinda suck at talking to each other about their problems.

[tiny-brass-bot]

Hi! I saw a post where you had a game made in godot with old school rendering, do you maybe have any tips on how to make godot render a game like that instead of its normal rendering method?

I'd be right happy to!

I'll try to make this concise lol, I always end up overexplaining and then getting lost in the weeds. Buckle up, it's a loooooot of little little things that all add up.

First off, you should decide which look you're going for. N64 and PS1, the two consoles I'm emulating, both had drastically different specs. (plus, there's plenty of other early 3D systems I've not even touched!)

The N64 had texture filtering (textures were interpolated aka "blurry"), it had floating point vertex precision (points moved correctly), it had perspective correction on its textures (no warping)

The PS1 had no texture filtering, no floating point vertex precision (vertices snap and pop around), affine texture mapping (textures warp weird). I also think the color space they operate in is different? Don't quote me

So you can go hard one way or another or pick and choose what you think looks good! We don't have anywhere near the hardware restrictions they did in the 90s so go nuts.

RESOLUTION

To get a low resolution window, I set the window size of the game and the window override size to different amounts

In green is actually how big the window is on my screen (4k monitor) and in red is the retro resolution I want. If you set the stretch mode correctly (an option a little further down the Window tab) then it'll make the pixels big

COLORS

Now the PS1 had the capability of showing you over 16 million different colors, but it could only display 50,000-150,000 at a time, so in order to get more fidelity out of it, the engineers implemented a dithering effect to better blend the otherwise sharp edges between colors.

I used this shader to achieve the dithering effect. If you don't understand shader languages, that's fine. There are a few different pre-built ones for looking like the PlayStation 1 out there.

TEXTURES

Textures for the PS1 could be as big as 256x256, but they were typically 128x128. And they would squish everything a model needed into there usually, at least with like player models and objects and such.

As mentioned, if you're not good with shader language don't worry. There are countless resources out there that people will either let you use or teach you how it works. But I'm gonna touch on it a little bit here.

PS1 textures had no pixel filtering, so you could see individual pixels.

This is what determines that in the shader code. If you want it to look like the N64 (blurry lol), the proper hint is "filter_linear". Note that it won't be 1:1 with N64, cuz they used bilinear filtering (which kinda sucks and causes weird quirks) whereas now you'll only find linear or trilinear filtering. It's a negligible difference imo.

PS1 textures also were only saved using 15 bit color. I'm told that Photoshop's "Posterize" filter set to 32 can achieve this, but don't use photoshop if you can help it. I use GIMP, and while a newer version might have a posterize filter, or there may be a plugin out there, my version doesn't so I cluge it a little.

Change your color mode to "indexed", set color dithering to how you like it, and the number of colors in the palette to a number to get a good result. Usually I'll do 16, 8, 32, but occasionally I'll cheat and do a non-multiple-of-8 teehee >:3c

You can change it back to RGB after to make further editing easier.

LIGHTING

N64 and PS1 both implemented vertex lighting, as opposed to the more modern and (now) ubiquitous per-pixel lighting. Godot as it is right now (4.2 i think?) claims it has vertex lighting that you can set as a shader property but they're lying and it doesn't work yet.

The old consoles could only handle like, 2 lights though so it doesn't matter much.

The real star of the show, and in my opinion the one thing that makes a game most look like the 90s is the inclusion of vertex colors.

By multiplying the color of your texture by its stored vertex color, you can do all the shading yourself!

Plus you can reuse textures like crazy just by coloring them differently. The N64 also made heavy use of vertex colors by forgoing a texture on models entirely and just painting them using verticies. The only textures on SM64 Mario are his eyes, stache, hat emblem, buttons, and sideburns. Everything else is done with vertex colors.

Here you can see this level from my Crock Land with no vertex coloring, with some of the vertex colors only, and then with the two combined.

Rare loved this. Look at how colorful that cliffside is in Jungle Japes. It makes it so much more interesting than just a brown cliff face. Plus you can see the vertex coloration instead of textures at work on DK and the Gnawty.

My go-to example for PS1 is always Spyro, what a gorgeous game. All of those colors there are not made by a light or an environment. They're hand painted babey! Also! With spyro! The skyboxes are actually just huge domes made up of vertices that are colored in different ways! That's how they can look so colorful and "hi-res".

There's plenty more you can do, like adding a CRT filter or a little bit of chromatic aberration which I haven't gotten into yet.

The way I've learned all this is just by being curious as to how the old consoles did their thing, and slowly accruing the knowledge over time. There's still infinite stuff I don't know too.

I hope that helped! And wasn't too longwinded or confusing! Like I said, it's all about piling up tons and tons of little things, small details, weird graphical quirks that really bring out the retro 3D feel for me.

And I didn't even get into the modeling side of things! That's an entirely different "color-of-the-sky"-sized post though.

I'd be happy to re-explain or explain more about any of this!

[larrythefloridaman]

thought about them again. sorry. it will keep happening

dont read the nccts then rewatch season one and go back to the nccts. worst mistake i ever made. So anyway let me pepe silvia at you about crimtoinette i have an essay prepared-

wasnt joking. If it were up to me this wouldnt be a link itd be a long post on here but the drafts function is not cooperating with me <3

Various stuff i drew while this analysis was in the making:

[djinniiy]

Can I ask how you learned to draw in the lmk artstyle? It's very impressive to see how accurate yet unique ur lmk art is compared to the show!

At first I simply did just trace out the shapes of screenshots to get an understanding of the proportions of the lmk style. as well as just stare and study for as long as I can to dumb down the style for myself-

Alot of my old LMK, Mainly OC art were just redraws from screenshots that I heavily edited and changed, like outfits were drawn all on my own and hairstyles ect. It was mainly just the body breakdown I used. like these-

I also have a little more knowledge on the style in general as a few buddies of mine, who can draw in the style Much more accurately then I can, Gave some tips and tricks! Like keeping in mind that drawing in the LMK style, the characters ARE lego characters and are meant to represent being made of molded plastic, and you don't want to draw somthing that feels like that plastic is snapping or breaking! as well as some style anatomy things! Before I used to freehand the eyes- Now I just use the circle tool and fill in. for coloring and rendering I just freehand it, but sometimes depending on things like shading (not always) I look at how LMK Shades things. I just do my usual method of flatcolor, shade sporadically but let it make sense, Throw some texture on there. Color the lineart, Blur the lineart a smidge and bam... Art. I'm still learning and studying. sometimes i cheat by drawing the pants baggy or the sleeves baggy so i don't have to keep up with drawing the "LMK Geometry" theres only so many cubes i want to draw hahah. In terms of my own "unique ness" I never stress over how "SHOW ACCURATE" I want my LMK style to emmulate, I just do enough to the poitn of "yeah thats the LMK style" and add my own flare like again texture or design in general.

[lilbabydilljr]

New Traits for TS2

Happy 5 years to my blog! Here's a gift for everyone. There's 2 versions inside the download, a catalogue version and a collection only version. There's also a new collection file, make sure to replace your old file, this goes in Collections, not Downloads.

Download (SFS)

Edit July 10/23: The original trait randomizer shares a GUID with the Boring trait. Either change its GUID, or use another method to randomize traits.

Edit July 18/20: Wannabe Moodlets and SimLife Goggles also share GUIDs. Change them as well, or remove trait_crybaby and/or trait_dreamer.

This is all the traits that had icons available on the wiki. Wanton has a description.

Included is a list of GUIDs for modders. I was unsure about doing the WA culture traits (they don't have a description for 1) and the Future Sim trait, but maybe I will one day?

At the moment these don't actually do anything, just like regular traits. They don't get added via the randomizer at the moment, but I thought they'd be a fun little touch.

Thanks to everyone who downloads my stuff! I've really gotten back in the groove of creating again and it's a lot of fun. Please let me know if there's any issues!

[three-dee-ess]

hiii i recently tried to hack my 3ds and it just... didnt work, and i really really dont know why? one of the steps is to remove the SD card while the 3ds is on and its supposed to go "whoopsies i need an SD card to work!" but it didnt do anything at all. it just kept running like normal. there isnt any troubleshooting guides for this. im not sure if its because my 3ds has an upgraded SD card slot (it was refurbished before i bought it and takes a microSD, even though its an old 3dsxl) or... why this happened, or where i fucked up, or what to do.... any help is appreciated! thank you! (it didnt brick but my eshop games have been removed, rip flipnote)

i don't know what guide you are following because I don't know of any 3DS hacks that require you to remove the SD card while it's still running. I would recommend trying a different hacking method, since there are about 3 available, and also making sure your SD card is formatted correctly. IT MUST be in fat32, which isn't the default option.

EDIT: sorry yall! can you tell i haven't modded an o3DS in a hot second lol? yes, there is a method that requires you to remove the SD card while the console is on. my other advice still stands- if you have the option to choose between different methods, then try a different one. Also, your SD card might just not be in the right format or might somehow be broken. If your 3DS isn't reading the SD card in the first place, it's not going to do anything when you remove the SD card.

[maniculum]

Do you have any books or sources for learning Olde English? I want to write a medieval-based story but I don't know how to write the characters speak the language.

That depends -- when you say "Olde English" do you mean Old English, like pre-1066 English? That's pretty far from modern English and it's unlikely that readers will be able to understand it easily. If that's what you're looking for, the texts I was taught with are:

Bright's Anglo-Saxon Reader

Quirk's Old English Grammar

Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Reader

They're all from a while back -- and, as you can see, some use the now-deprecated term "Anglo-Saxon" -- so you can find older editions free in the public domain. More recent revised editions can generally be found in cheap paperback form. I believe there are some more modern textbooks that are quite good, but I haven't looked at them, and I don't know how affordable they are.

I have also consulted with Zoe (@meanderingmedievalist) on this, and she recommends Baker's Introduction to Old English, as well as the related resource Old English Aerobics:

The reason there are textbooks for this, though, is because you genuinely have to treat it as a foreign language. It's very different from modern English. As a sample, here's the beginning of Beowulf:

Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon hu ða æþelingas      ellen fremedon. Oft Scyld Scefing      sceaþena þreatum monegum maegþum      meodosetla ofteah egsode eorle syððan aerest wearð feasceaft funden he þæs frofre gebad weox under wolcnum weorðmyndum þah oð þæt him aeghwylc þara ymbsittendra ofer hronrade      hyran scolde, gomban gyldan      þæt wæs god cyning.

So if you put a lot of it into a story for a modern audience, most of them will be a bit lost.

If when you say "Olde English" you mean "English that sounds archaic and medieval, but is comprehensible to a modern audience", you're probably looking for Middle English.

I don't have any direct references for learning the language there, as I was mostly taught through immersion (i.e., here's a Middle English text, read and translate it, now do another until you get a feel for it), but Zoe recommends Fulk's Introduction to Middle English, so that's a good bet if you don't want to go through that process.

However, I do think the "just read the texts" method also works fine -- especially since, if you're writing a medieval story, you'll want to read some of the literature anyway for inspiration. Here's what you can do to use that method outside of a classroom setting:

Step One: Get a Middle English text with a facing-page translation. Armitage's edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is good for this. Read the Middle English text, referring to the Modern English translation on the facing page whenever you don't understand it. Do this with a pencil in hand, so you can annotate the text with definitions, translations, and notes about how the sentences work.

Step Two: Get a Middle English text for which modern translations exist. Don't get the modern translation. The Canterbury Tales works for this: it's a classic and you should be able to pick up a copy anywhere. The version on my shelves is Baugh's Chaucer's Major Poetry -- which is heavily footnoted with definitions, potentially saving some time with the dictionary -- but it doesn't really matter as long as it's in the original. Read it. Every time you don't know a word, look it up in the Middle English Dictionary (available free online, in searchable form, here) and write it down. Again, best to annotate directly on the page with a pencil. Trust me, it helps to do it that way. Once you're done, get a modern translation and check your work.

At this point, you'll probably have picked up enough of the language that you should be able to write in it to some degree, though you'll want to continue making reference to the Middle English Dictionary to make sure you're employing period-appropriate usage and spelling. If you have access to the Oxford English Dictionary (if you're at a university, you almost certainly do, otherwise check with your local library), use that to check when the words you're using originated -- the OED has that listed, and that'll keep you from accidentally dropping an 18th-century term into medieval dialogue. You can also use their Historical Thesaurus to find period-appropriate equivalents for terminology.

Optional Step Three: Keep reading more Middle English literature with the dictionary open, annotating as you go, to get additional practice. If you can get through Le Morte Darthur in the original (get the P.J.C. Field edition), I think you'll be set in terms of "writing convincing medieval prose". Not because it's particularly difficult -- it's late medieval, so the language is actually more modern than either of the texts mentioned in steps one and two -- but just because it's long, so you'll get a lot of practice working through it. As a bonus, reading Malory will familiarize you with lots of good knightly vocabulary in case that's the kind of story you want to write.

Optional Step Four: Read scholarly articles on Middle English language and literature to get a more in-depth understanding. Again, check with your local library, or if you're at a university, a university library will have a vast amount of resources on this subject you can browse through.

[wolveria]

My Tech-genda

I haven't written meta in a long time, but I just have so much to say about Infiltration and Extraction:

I'm sure there will be a ton of these, but my two cents as to how X is actually Tech (or Tex, as @nightfall-1409 calls him).

The POV of the show relied heavily on this new assassin, and that means he's a Special boy. Not like the assassin we saw in the trailer who died this episode arc. This is the boy we see on Pabu. That other assassin was a throwaway, maybe to get us off the scent.

And this is the big one for me, Tex fought like each of the OG Batch, including himself. Detonations, hacking, sniper rifle, vibroblade. His hobby of recording everything makes me think he either has eidetic memory, or he's an excellent copycat of what he's observed, especially something he would see on a daily basis.

Tex breaking out old tools. The pad on his arm almost like his old comm device/datapad. The grappling hook down the shaft. An evil little baby Marauder.

Falling and surviving (again). Maybe re-broke or simply re-injured that old broken femur. Conveniently, Tex hunches over a little so we can’t see how tall he is compared to other clones like Wolffe (they probably use the same model for all the Clone X assassins so this might be delusional on my part, but I think it would be a nice touch).

Also, the lighting this season is supposed to be a Big Deal, right.

This pulled back shot after Tex comes out of the hideout, he’s limping and injured, and there’s darkness all around him. He’s walking through this shaft of light, like a spotlight or a beacon, and I’m just like. Wow. Why such emotional shots for a random bad guy huh.

That was my same issue with the big season 3 trailer. When we get a shot of Clone X on Pabu, the music swells in an emotional, dramatic arc. You wouldn't waste that on some random guy. At least, I wouldn't.

Last but not least, Tex's reaction to drowning Crosshair, and Crosshair gently grabbing at his shoulder before he falls unconscious. He pulls back a little and pants heavily. I genuinely can't tell if Tex is reacting to the touch, Crosshair fading away, or both.

I also don't need to go into the imagery of Crosshair and Tech being mirrors of each other through the water, and that Tex is the Imperial agent that Crosshair failed to be. We've seen two methods of the Empire's control: reconditioning and the inhibitor chip. Seems the Empire is learning from its mistakes when it comes to the failing chips.

Note: There is much more I could go into, like despite the fact his voice is heavily modulated, Tex sounds exactly like his old self when he's grunting/panting. There's still so much to uncover, but I thought this was a nice start.

Sources: I write and have music/video editing experience, and these are things that make sense to me.

Addendum: Folks saying this is "bad writing" (an opinion, not a fact) are missing the point.

The question is not: Is it bad writing? The question is, can I masturbate to it? The answer, in this case, is yes.

Anyway that’s my Tech-genda thanks for listening.

[jadeitelaire]

Geographical Narratives: Mapping Leon S. Kennedy's Origins

-edit 20:45 GMT+8 2025/02/01-

To those who have sent me negative messages criticizing my use of AI: Well, yes, I use AI tools like ChatGPT Pro, Claude Pro and Perplexity Pro to assist me in analyzing and writing, along with resources like Google, Quora, YouTube, Reddit, extensively playing the games myself, and even drawing from my personal experiences, movies I've watched, and the knowledge I've gained over the years. I studied film production in my college with a focus on screenwriting and directing. I gather information, analyze it, and synthesize ideas to create something meaningful—and I don't see why that's an issue.

If you lack the initial passion, imagination or knowledge about Resident Evil, NOT A SINGLE TOOL—AI or otherwise—will enable you to create substantial content. I create this fanfic primarily to entertain myself and to share it with those who might also find resonance in it. I’m relatively late to the franchise (Oct 2024, yeah I know, what took me so long?), and since I don’t have close friends to discuss the games with, writing fanfic allows me to explore and connect with the world of Resident Evil in my own way. With a full-time job, I also use AI tools to enhance efficiency in my leisure time, so I can focus on the parts I enjoy most—crafting stories and delving into the lore. For me, it’s about enjoying the process and connecting with others who share the same passion. The fact that I leverage modern tools and technology to enhance my writing and analysis is a choice I make, and it doesn't concern you if you choose not to explore or utilize these resources yourself. Instead of focusing on how something is made, perhaps consider the effort and thought behind it. Innovation and creativity mean adapting to new tools and methods. Using AI—or any resource—doesn’t devalue the work; it amplifies what’s possible. And if we don’t see eye to eye, that’s fine. Party's over and the door’s over there if you need it. 🫶🚪

Ok pookies, here we go:

I. Geographical and Cultural Setting

Indianapolis as Leon's Hometown Indianapolis (population 740,000 in 1998) offers a compelling contrast to Raccoon City's metropolitan density (population 1.5 million). With its stable Midwestern character, open layout, and moderate pace, Indianapolis is an ideal environment for the Mitchell family's middle-class lifestyle. Its educational resources and affordable living costs made it a logical place for Leon to grow up in a foster home after the loss of his family.

The distance between Indianapolis and Raccoon City—about 360 miles (580 km)—adds to the narrative. It is far enough to signify a fresh start for a 21-year-old rookie like Leon, yet close enough to make the move practical. This geographical separation reinforces his desire for career advancement, while subtly highlighting the pull of Raccoon City's opportunities, including the prestigious Raccoon Police Department (RPD) and its elite S.T.A.R.S. unit.

Raccoon City's Population Paradox: Why 100,000 Doesn't Add Up With a population of 1.5 million, Raccoon City stands as a major regional metropolis—smaller than Chicago (2.8 million) but significantly larger than Indianapolis. This population size positions it as a city significant enough to be deeply entwined with the operations of the Umbrella Corporation.

Setting aside the official game canon, which states that Raccoon City had a population of 100,000, but why did I estimate it to be around 1.5 million? Let’s start with its ultimate fate—being wiped out by a nuclear strike.

For the government to justify deploying nuclear weapons, Raccoon City would need to have a population of at least one million. This threshold aligns with military decision-making logic, as the use of such extreme measures typically requires a significant threat level, both in terms of the scale of the outbreak and its potential to spread. A city with a smaller population might not warrant such drastic action, as conventional containment methods would likely be considered sufficient. However, if Raccoon City were home to a million or more people, the risk of the virus spreading beyond the city limits would be much higher, making a nuclear strike a more viable last resort to prevent a global catastrophe.

To determine a reasonable population estimate, we can look at comparable real-world cities that fit Raccoon City’s urban and geographic profile.

Bridging the Gap: A Tale of Two Cities The use of both Chicago and Pittsburgh Metropolitan Area (MSA) as references helps resolve the tension between:

Chicago for the canon requirement of location: Midwest city

Pittsburgh MSA for the actual game portrayal in the natural landscape: mountainous (Arklay) and the hills in the city

Pittsburgh MSA for the assumed population

Both cities for the Neo-Classical heritage of architectures

Both cities for the urban development scale

Though classified as a Midwestern city, Raccoon City's geography and economic characteristics diverge significantly from regional norms. Unlike the flat plains typical of the Midwest, the city is nestled within the dramatic Arklay Mountains, whose elevation changes and natural isolation evoke Pittsburgh's position within the Appalachian foothills. This unique setting provides the city with a scale akin to Chicago (the Midwest’s largest metropolis), while its geography amplifies a sense of both grandeur and seclusion. The Arklay Mountains, combined with frequent overcast skies, winter fog, and regular rainfall, create an atmosphere of foreboding—a natural curtain for Umbrella’s clandestine operations. This ominous tone, blending isolation with unease, tragically mirrors the fate that would ultimately befall the city.

II. Urban Development and Visual Identity

Architectural Heritage and Evolution Raccoon City’s iconic police department building, converted from a museum, reflects the rich architectural heritage of both Pittsburgh and Chicago, cities that flourished during the late 19th-century industrial boom. Both cities are known for their grand civic and cultural buildings in the Neo-Classical and Beaux-Arts styles—impressive stone structures with ornate facades, symmetrical designs, and elaborate interior layouts. Pittsburgh’s historic architecture emphasizes heavy stonework and Romanesque Revival influences, while Chicago, though also home to many classical structures, became a pioneer in steel-frame skyscrapers and modern urban development.

Raccoon City’s architectural identity appears to be a fusion of these influences, combining the monumental grandeur of Pittsburgh’s historic buildings with Chicago’s urban scale and development patterns.

Modern Development and Infrastructure The Bright Raccoon 21st Century Plan transformed what was once a "sleepy country city" into a thriving metropolis of over a million residents. This is particularly evident in the remakes of Resident Evil 2 & 3, where the city demonstrates comprehensive urban infrastructure:

An extensive subway system with multiple lines connecting diverse districts

Modern commercial districts featuring impressive high-rises

The grand-scale police headquarters housing elite units like S.T.A.R.S.

Advanced medical facilities including multiple major hospitals

Various entertainment venues including shopping centers and sports facilities

Sophisticated underground networks originally built for municipal services

Urban Zones and Districts This rapid expansion created distinct urban zones:

A modern downtown core dominated by Umbrella's corporate presence

Historic districts preserving the city's industrial heritage

Diverse residential areas reflecting growing social stratification

Extensive suburban developments reaching toward the Arklay Mountains

Research and development districts housing Umbrella's facilities

III. Visual Representation and Media Adaptations

Film Adaptations and Metropolitan Character The city's metropolitan character is most prominently captured in film adaptations, particularly Resident Evil: Apocalypse, which utilized Toronto's urban landscape. The choice of Toronto as a filming location provided the perfect backdrop with its:

Impressive skyline reflecting modern urbanization

Dense commercial districts showing economic vitality

Sophisticated infrastructure networks

Mix of historical and contemporary architecture

The subsequent shift in visual representation seen in more recent adaptations, such as Welcome to Raccoon City (2021) filmed in Sudbury, presents a notably different scale that contrasts with this established metropolitan image. However, the grand urban scale established through the main game series and earlier adaptations remains the dominant image in collective fan consciousness, better supporting the city's role as a major hub of Umbrella Corporation's operations.

Underground Infrastructure Network The city's elaborate subterranean networks serve multiple purposes:

Original municipal service tunnels from the industrial era

Modern subway system connecting major districts

Repurposed sections serving as Umbrella's hidden facilities

Complex drainage systems utilizing the natural river convergence

Emergency infrastructure incorporated into older networks

IV. Population Impact and Catastrophic Scale

Metropolitan Dynamics Raccoon City's population created perfect conditions for both Umbrella's control and the eventual catastrophe. This scale was large enough to justify extensive viral research facilities and enable rapid infection spread through dense urban areas, yet small enough for Umbrella to maintain significant influence over local politics, economy, and public safety.

Scale of Infection and Difficulty of Containment The destruction of Raccoon City with a nuclear strike seems somewhat less justified given its official lore population of only 100,000, as the government might have had alternative methods to contain the outbreak, such as:

Bioweapon neutralization – Deploying gas or specialized vaccines to eliminate infected individuals without obliterating the entire city.

Precision airstrikes and ground force operations – Sending special forces (e.g., U.S.S. or military task forces) to conduct targeted strikes and systematic eradication.

Stricter military quarantine – Completely sealing off the city, allowing the virus and infected individuals to die out or minimizing the risk of external spread.

However, the government ultimately chose nuclear destruction, likely due to several factors:

The severity of the virus – The T-virus is extremely difficult to eradicate. Even a single infected crow or rat escaping could lead to a nationwide outbreak. Thus, even for a city with only 100,000 residents, the government could not afford to take any chances.

Time constraints – The military and federal authorities may have believed that containment efforts would be too slow compared to the rate of viral spread, making a swift and decisive solution necessary.

Political motives – Umbrella Corporation had deep ties within the government and may have influenced this decision to cover up its involvement.

Comparison 100,000 Population (Official Setting):

A city of this scale is relatively small, making quarantine measures easier to enforce.

If the military intervenes swiftly, targeted airstrikes and bioweapons could potentially contain the outbreak without resorting to nuclear weapons.

However, considering the virus's incubation period and its potential transmission through animal carriers, the risk remains high, and the government might still opt for extreme measures.

1.5 Million Population:

This is now a large metropolitan area, making containment significantly more difficult.

If 1.5 million people descend into panic and chaos, the government would struggle to maintain order, as societal collapse would happen rapidly.

A larger number of infected individuals increases the likelihood of military quarantine failure, drastically raising the risk of viral spread.

This makes nuclear strikes a more "rational" choice, as traditional methods (quarantine, airstrikes, bioweapons) may no longer guarantee complete eradication of the virus.

Disaster Implications The city's population density proved crucial in several aspects:

Infrastructure Impact: Dense population networks facilitated rapid viral transmission

Crisis Management: Urban density accelerated infection rates beyond containment capacity

Evacuation Complexity: The sheer number of residents overwhelmed evacuation procedures

Federal Response: The risk of 1.5 million potential infected spreading beyond city limits justified the extreme measure of nuclear sterilization

Scale of Catastrophe The population size of 1.5 million directly influenced the disaster's progression:

Rapid viral spread through densely populated areas

Overwhelmed emergency services and healthcare facilities

Failed evacuation attempts due to massive population movement

Justified federal government's extreme containment measures

Created a crisis too large for local control but contained enough for complete sanitization

How well-known was the Raccoon City incident internationally? According to official lore, the Raccoon City incident was partially exposed to the world, but much of the truth was concealed.

In Resident Evil 4 & 4R, when the U.S. president’s daughter, Ashley, is kidnapped, Leon is introduced as a survivor of the Raccoon City incident, indicating that high-ranking government officials were aware of the event.

In Resident Evil 5, the formation of the BSAA (Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance) suggests that the tragedy of Raccoon City became a catalyst for global action, meaning at least some nations knew about its severity.

In Resident Evil 6, bioterrorism had become a worldwide crisis, implying that the Raccoon City incident was the starting point. However, both the government and Umbrella likely hid key details from the public, preventing it from becoming fully known as a global catastrophe.

V. Umbrella Corporation's Strategic Operations

Control and Corporate Influence Raccoon City's size proved perfect for Umbrella's operations:

Large enough to justify extensive research facilities and corporate presence

Small enough to maintain significant political influence

Complex enough to hide suspicious activities

Isolated enough to contain potential incidents

Developed enough to support advanced research facilities

Historical Context and Operations In 1968, the same year Umbrella was founded, Leon's father joined the company's logistics brach as a mid-level manager in Indianapolis. By 1985, his discovery of suspicious shipping patterns led to the tragic elimination of Leon's family, demonstrating Umbrella's ability to quietly remove threats while maintaining its legitimate facade.

Strategic Geographical Separation The calculated distance between Umbrella's research facilities in Raccoon City and its distribution center in Indianapolis represented more than a mere logistical decision—it was a deliberate corporate strategy of calculated compartmentalization. By establishing physical and operational distance between its most sensitive functions, Umbrella created a sophisticated buffer against potential external scrutiny.

Indianapolis offered an ideal distribution hub: centrally located, with robust transportation infrastructure that allowed seamless nationwide pharmaceutical product movement. Meanwhile, Raccoon City's isolated topography provided the perfect environment for confidential research, shielded by complex geographical features and an urban landscape marked by industrial decline and bureaucratic opacity.

This geographical strategy served multiple purposes: it dispersed corporate risk, complicated potential investigative trails, and maintained the appearance of a conventional pharmaceutical enterprise. Mid-level managers like Leon's father, positioned within these carefully constructed operational networks, remained vulnerable yet critically positioned—close enough to observe irregularities, yet expendable enough to be silenced without widespread alarm.

The separation was not just about efficiency, but survival—both of the corporation's interests and its most dangerous secrets.

Threat Neutralization Protocol The choice of middle management in logistics rather than pharmaceutical executives as targets reveals Umbrella's calculated approach. Unlike high-profile executives who mainly dealt with paperwork, mid-level logistics managers had direct access to physical evidence of suspicious activities. Their position made them more likely to notice irregularities while being easier to "handle" without drawing attention. Their relatively lower profile in the corporate hierarchy meant their sudden "unfortunate accidents" would raise fewer questions than the death of a senior executive.

Economic and Social Contrasts The economic and social dynamics between these cities in the 1980s-90s prove revealing. Indianapolis, with its stable social order and emerging status as a logistics hub, served perfectly for Umbrella's legitimate operations. Its straightforward crime patterns, community oversight, and robust public security made it ideal for maintaining a clean corporate image. Meanwhile, Raccoon City struggled with industrial decline: unemployment, deteriorating infrastructure, organized crime, and corruption. These conditions, combined with its isolated geography and complex underground infrastructure, made it perfect for Umbrella's questionable research activities.

VI. Impact on Leon's Character Development

Career Choice Context The contrast between Indianapolis and Raccoon City shaped Leon's career aspirations. This is particularly evident in the Resident Evil 2 Remake, where his reference to Raccoon City as a "big city" reveals much about his background:

This perception is particularly evident in a key moment from Resident Evil 2 Remake, where Leon tells Claire "It's a big city...there has to be [survivors]." This seemingly simple line reveals much about his background and character.

Why? Allow me to shed more light on this 👇 Moving from Indianapolis to Raccoon City reflects:

The genuine awe of someone stepping into a larger metropolitan area

The optimism of a rookie officer facing his first major assignment

The appeal of joining a more prestigious police department

His untested perspective is shaped by:

Moving from a modest Midwestern city to a major urban center

The allure of RPD's specialized units like S.T.A.R.S.

The promise of career advancement and new opportunities

Psychological Journey As a 21-year-old rookie, Leon embodied a mix of optimism and naivety. His outsider perspective made him uniquely observant of the city's contrasts—its modern developments overshadowed by systemic corruption, its bustling streets tinged with unease, and its apparent prosperity marred by corporate control. His first day would transform this optimistic rookie into a hardened survivor, marking the beginning of his relentless quest for truth and justice.

VII. Conclusion

The contrasting dynamics between Indianapolis and Raccoon City form a rich backdrop for Leon's journey. The geographical and social differences between these cities not only shape his character development but also underscore the broader themes of ambition, resilience, and the devastating consequences of unchecked power. The tragic irony of Leon unknowingly walking into the same darkness that had changed his life thirteen years earlier adds a profound layer to his story of personal growth and determination.

The scale and complexity of Raccoon City, with its population of 1.5 million, proved to be the perfect setting for both Umbrella's machinations and Leon's transformation from an optimistic rookie to a hardened survivor. This carefully constructed urban environment, with its blend of historic architecture and modern development, its extensive infrastructure networks, and its hidden facilities, created an ideal stage for the tragic events that would unfold during that fateful September of 1998.

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Note: This analysis combines canonical information with real-world contexts to create a coherent background setting for my ongoing Resident Evil fanfiction "The Berthing". By examining the real-world geography and socioeconomic conditions of Indianapolis and Pittsburgh in the late 1960s-90s, I aim to construct a plausible foundation for Leon's journey from his childhood tragedy to his fateful assignment in Raccoon City. This research particularly supports the Mitchell family arc in my story, where Leon grows up in a middle-class Indianapolis foster home before his eventual move to Raccoon City. As a non-American citizen and only been a traveler so far, I've researched these locations and their cultural aspects carefully, but I welcome insights and discussions from readers familiar with these places. Your perspective would be valuable in enhancing the story's authenticity. Lastly, I'd apologize for any grammar or typo mistakes since English is not my native language!