#i archived some old stuff there but not all

[hrrtshape]

FAME DR — random things i catch myself doing

⋆   checking my reflection in every reflective surface – not even trying to be vain; it just happens. windows, sunglasses, the back of my spoon in restaurants… gotta make sure the hair’s doing its thing!!!!!! can you blame me?? after scripting that im the most beautiful person in the galaxy world universe planet earth the extraterrestrial covering???

⋆  getting waay too into my own fan edits – i know, i know. i know !! but i can’t help it. cause why are some of these people lowkey bob ross’es…….. and god knows those iwishutalktalkwishutalktalkwishutalktalk edits slap!!!!!

⋆  making a mental list of all the celebrities i want to befriend – every awards show, it’s like, “ooooooooo, gotta chat with her next time. ye. ye,” or “could we handle being besties? or would she be too busy? would i be too busy??” 

⋆  doing my own mini-paparazzi test runs – i’ll walk down my hallway pretending it’s a red carpet, testing aaallll thé best angles and smiles for when the cameras flash. “which look is more it girl chic baddie mysterious diva core? do i give a little smile or keep it ice-cold? attitude?? fuck. what i do.”

⋆  googling my own name with random keywords – like “[…] + scandal” just to see what wild stories fans are spinning, or “[…] + best outfits” to remind myself that I AM…indeed.. that girl

⋆  pretending i’m on vogue’s “73 questions” while i do mundane stuff – loading the dishwasher or folding laundry, and all of a suddem i’m answering fake questions about my favourite ice cream flavour like the world is (definitelly….definitely…) watching.

⋆  using my awards as high-key decor – casually arranging grammy’s, oscars, tony’s and emmys’ on my living room shelf, so they’re visible for any.. unplanned photos. they might as well count as conversation starters.

⋆  accidentally stealing lip glosses from every makeup artist I work with – it’s not intentional! but I end up with an ever-growing collection of shades that accidentally find their way into my purse. oops ? the 11 year old kleptomaniac in me never left, i guess. 

⋆  tossing air-kisses to fans out the windows – dramatically waving out the window to invisible crowds like i’m on a royal tour. it’s mainly just for me, but I feel like the main character every single time.

⋆  practising my award speech in the shower – just in case, you know ? i’m running through all the thank yous and shoutouts, making sure the delivery is tear-worthy but not too dramatic.

⋆  catching myself using my best “signature” autograph – even when signing random receipts, i go full-on with my signature. i know it’ll end up on ebay one day, so i make it flawless every time.

⋆  overthinking my outfit to do something minor – even stepping out for two minutes has to look like it’s casual yet unbelievably chic. what if a fan spots me or a candid photo gets out? the pressure’s real.

⋆  choosing my airport outfits as if It’s a NYFW – the airport is a runway for the weary and jet-lagged, so i’m showing up in my finest oversized hoodie and designer shades, ready to be “spontaneously” photographed.

⋆  taking a nap between interview segments – there’s a tiny couch in my dressing room for a reason, and you better believe i’m getting that beauty sleep between each round of the press circuit. besides. it’s very convenient that i scripted i look angelic after waking up. so, yes! 

⋆  listening to my own songs on repeat (in private) – yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe it’s a little narcissistic, but when I’m alone, my music is basically my personal ‘bop-makker’ playlist. 

⋆  bringing little sweet treats to red carpets – you don’t know hunger until you’re in an all-day event in a tight dress with no food in sight, so yes, i stash some of those bombastic granola bars in my clutch.

⋆  updating my pinterest boards – 24/7 adding new aesthetics, vintage looks, moody photoshoots, and iconic glam shots for future eras. the grind never stops !! besides, it’s xtremely fun to find archival gowns that i could just be like… “yeah, i want it.” 

⋆  taking a pic every time i feel iconic !! – at the end of the day, it’s all about those little moments of mine. how could i not capture myself looking iconic with my hair blowing in the wind, or that one perfect winged eyeliner and i won an oscar. this is MY MOMENT. 

⋆  signing a signature with something xxxtra 4 fans – if i see a fan with my merch, i’ll randomly sign it and add hearts, sparkles, whatever i can just to make it extra special. just please don’t put it on ebay again with a doubled price 

⋆  giggling over my own wikipedia page – homemade margarita blender and a straw in it in hand, reading. yes. i do that. unemployed at heart. also sometimes raising an eyebrow when i encounter something false. like, no…i haven’t been dating dev patel. i mean, i wish ! 

⋆  humming my own lyrics while shopping — as if some people wouldn’t recognise them !! just a little “oopsy, did i just sing my grammy-winning chorus in the cereal aisle?”

⋆  leaving my phone on loud because it could be beyonce, for all intents and purposes — ready for all incoming calls. for interviews. for mysterious dinners. for my situationship to text me. for that movie role. but also probably just mom, calling to check on me.

⋆  breaking into runway walks — from the kitchen to the bathroom, because i !!!have!! to practice those killer strides. preferably in slippers.

⋆  complimenting my own acting in movies — like……“damn, i’m talented. i’m pretty good at this, huh..” lowkey shocking myelf during certain scenes, because yes, i went *THERE.*

⋆  collecting little trinkets from world tours — coasters, matchbooks, hotel room keys (should’ve probably given those back, now that i’m thinking about it), because each one is a time capsule from the adventure.

⋆  randomly testing my oscar acceptance expressions in the mirror — gotta know how much to cry, smile, or look truly humbled when the time comes !!!!

[harmlesspersonalidentityarchive]

archive of archives/helpful blogs i found

general/all mogai:

@archive-of-ire terms about anger, rage and spite

@archive-of-music musicagender & songic/songgender

@faunagender mogai terms related to animals

@floragender terms related to flora

@toygenders terms related to toys

@horrormogai horror-based labels

@pride-color-schemes flag maker, posted compilations of all flags for many terms which include alt text for each flag

https://www.tumblr.com/beyond-mogai-pride-flags they DO have like a bajillion reblogs of useful things but also frequently let racist/ableist terms fall through the cracks so browse at your own risk

@gender-jargon coins lots of mogai things and reblogs some terms

@neopronouns coiner and reblogger of a lot of stuff coins lots of things and reblogs mogai/liom

@radiomogai archives tons of things, mostly mogai

@io-archival unarchived terms, deleted posts and deactivated blogs

@mogai-transcriber transcribes/writes plain text for tons of things

@accessmogai transcribes/writes image descriptions/writes plain text

https://coinfight.tumblr.com/ archive of terms coined during coinfight

genders:

@fem-mogai feminine and female genders

@recordshop-archive genders related to songs, artists, and albums

@bitchgenders-archive -bitchgenders

@inviane-archive

@musicamogai

@catgender-archiver

@thing-genders-archive

orientation/attraction:

@orientation-archive.

@tertiary-attraction-archive

alteraffectis:

@alteraffectis

ficto:

@fictoflags

objectum/conceptum/objectix:

@object-concept-archive

presentation:

@presentationflag-archive

pronouns:

@pronoun-arc

@everypronoun

relationships:

@x4xarchive x4x (like t4t) terms

intersex:

@interarchive intersex related terms

@intersexflags aesthetic intersex flags

reclaimed slurs:

f-ggot: @faggyflags

after dark:

after dark = not safe for minors. be logical and don't interact with blogs dedicated to this if a minor

@mogaigonewild

other:

@flageditsarchive.tumblr.com/ aesthetic and colorpicked flags

@aestheticprideflagarchive aesthetic, combo, colorpicked, misc flags (inactive)

@harmlesspersonalidentityarchive thas me :3 various ids, especially focused on things like transspecies, dissomei, desirdae etc

@mogai-icon-archive pride icons

@conformant-archive conforming, like cis and straight, and variants of that

@cisqueer-archive identities involving cisness with queerness

neurodivergence:

general neurodivergence:

@mad-pride

neurogenders:

@neurogenderarchive

identiora/"other"

kin/therian/hearted:

@alterhumanflags

age:

age regression:

https://a-agere-archive.tumblr.com/

chronosian:

@chronosian-archive (inactive)

dissomei:

@dissodic-archive

desirdae:

@desirdae-archive

emsoul:

@emsoul-archive

intusui:

@intusui

species:

@specieschive

other/misc identiora:

@archive-of-form "Archive for terms related to having and/or desiring certain body traits. Includes aldernic, dissodic, transbody, desirdae, altersex, and misceverse terms."

@aspectsofidentity

plurality:

all purpose plurality:

@plurality-faq

https://www.tumblr.com/plural-labels (inactive)

misc/other:

ficto-religions:

@ficto-religious-archive

general purpose misc/other:

https://everythingarchive.tumblr.com/

unsure how to categorize:

https://www.tumblr.com/gamercod old archive for one system's coinings

https://www.tumblr.com/daylightrecords/ old archive for one user's coining

https://www.tumblr.com/notcishetarchive everything not cishet. idk how to warn for... whatever happened there

https://www.tumblr.com/yanderessarchive

@rentrypixelpridearchive pride flag pixels for rentry

@other-pride-archive

neoagab:

@neoagab

dances

[heysye]

i finally made an art-only blog -> https://heysyeart.tumblr.com/

its still a bit of a wip, but it's mostly in place now.

if you only want to see occasional sye art then pop over there instead, cause i'm loosening the reigns a bit and will be posting about more silly stuff (i.e. interests and ramblings) here now. ill still RB my stuff here. i also will be more inclined to posting silly doodles and whatnot here too. its the fun zone!

[psychomusic]

oc time again! + her town & culture (heavily inspired by pre-roman italic populations)

she is suri sauthon. her story is linked to my swtor imperial agent, tar'x, but most of her life except for the one year away where she meets him, is spent in a town in the mountains of mirial.

despite mirial being cold and desert, and many cities developing underground, her town flourishes thanks to a force nexus, venerated in the form of an ancient, sacred, alive crystal. the ecosystem of that mountain depended on what "the horned crystal" was capable of giving them, but mirialans couldn't live off of that alone, so they developed trade and some rudimental technology, even if oftentimes it was bought thanks to the highly profitable trade of a plant used to make medicines that slowed down aging and had overall healing properties.

note: everything that's generated by this nexus has these healing properties BUT they have to be processed, except for those who bathed in the waters of the cavity under the crystal - the "real" nexus, but not the worshipped one. the waters were sacred but they were not thought to be miraculous, unlike the crystal, who instead was thought of as the keystone of the ecosystem: without it, everything would fall apart (and that is partially true: the cavity was the "real" nexus but thanks to the crystal, also strong in the force, the properties were spread all over the mountains). those who bathed in the cavity's waters - so, all of the town, who had a sort of baptism there - could eat the plant, make whatever food with it, and not only that plant, but everything generated by the nexus, that, again, had similar properties. this allowed people to live up to normal life-spans without advanced medicines or, much, really. to those who didn't live there, though, after the processing, had incredible effects, slowing down aging - for those who took it regularly - and making people able to live up to half a century more than the average]

originally, there were four tribes of nomads that lived thanks to horned farm animals that decided to settle down into one bigger town and other smaller settlements, to live off of transhumance. this division of the tribes stayed into the political and social organization: every person belonged to one tribe specifically, and had slightly different rituals and culture. for examples, each tribe had their own priests and healers, with different techniques and traditions. the town, tho, was guided by a group of people in the high priesthood, a position you could reach only by having earned the trust of all tribes. those high priests had many roles: they guided the people into sacred processions common to all the tribes, they managed the trading with outsiders, they did the maintenance of the temple of the summit (the one that functioned as casket to the crystal) and created a special liquid to offer the crystal that helps it grow.

this particular temple was important because 1. it was very visible, from every angle of the town, and it became an important identity symbol; 2. it stored the venerated horned crystal; 3. it had the altar where sacrifices were made for the crystals. that altar had a hole connected to the cavity, that allowed the liquids to reach the underground; 4. it had various symbols: statues representing each tribe + the high priesthood, and typical mirialan tattoos carved into the wood of the trees that served as columns for the temple, symbolizing 8 values that who dared to enter HAD to have; 5. it was on the way to an important lake (called "mother lake" because the lake the town was built around to depended on the waters of that other lake) where they traveled to in important processions; 6. it was said that a the wizard who unified the tribes made it with its magic, making the plant grow to hold the temple's roof. this wizard was, actually, a force user, obv.

BACK TO HER THOUGH: she's daughter of one of the high priests, who was in charge of managing the trades with outsiders, and lives in a house on the mountains with her mother and him. her parents are from different tribes (that's one of the things that earned him trust from the 4 tribes): when a child is born from two different tribes, they don't pick one to allign to, but they're usually linked automatically to the one with more relatives in it (in her case, the father's tribe: she had many uncles and aunts on his side while her mom only had one sister).

later, though, she got quite tied to her mother's tribe due to a mysterious illness that only her mother's tribe healer was able to cure. she spent 4 years (from 10 to 14 years old) living with the healer and learned her secrets. to better study, she wrote them down. when she returned home, she studied to become a priestess with her father. at 22 (the average age: you can't become priest before your 20s), she was supposed to take a test and become a priestess, but the healer of her mother's tribe died and the tribe asked her to take her place. she couldn't technically do that, but both tribes estimated both her and her parents and she was allowed to become both. she then decided to try to become a high priestess, and became one at 25 (a quite young age). being part of the council, she tried to convince the various tribe healers to unite their knowledges and write them down, and eventually made it. healers still remained tribe based but they now had an "upper, inter-tribe level" similar to high priesthood.

years later, the sacred horned crystal is stolen from the temple by some Hutt mercenaries looking for a profit. given the trust she has earned from all the tribes and the fact that her father is the high priest that deals with outsiders (and she's been hearing stories and advice about it since she was little), she is the one tasked with getting it back. without the growing crystal, the keystone to their ecosystem, the village would have lasted only a few years. in hrr quest, she meets imperial intelligence agent tar'x laran and, as they "solve the mystery" and fight to have it back, they get closer. they'll get married and have a daughter, Vegoia (who's the only one who actually will get to the plot of my story. this was all background)

[decepti-thots]

i will never stop being impressed that chinese TF fandom has fan translated the entirety of IDW1. actually, just. seemingly every TF comic ever written. but IDW1 is so many goddamn comics, and eng>chinese translation is famously so complex and difficult, and IDW1 was so many comics, seriously. that is incredible. oh my god. one day i would LOVE to speak to someone bilingual who is able to tell me about translation choices made for MTMTE, like i would LOVE to know how certain things are handled. what a cool thing.

[theblankest123]

Ah lads it's happening again

(I've been slowly getting into TMA and i can feel the hyperfixation starting to develop)

[e-adlirez]

Thea Stilton Treasure Seekers Review/Ramble

Behold, an impulsive ramble about a possibly-obscure trilogy that's been translated to English during quarantine-ish, adding to the obscurity.

So the Treasure Seekers, huh? :3

Coming out a little prior but more or less over the course of quarantine and thus a lot of people not having ready access to it, the Treasure Seekers is what turned out to be a trilogy of what it says on the tin: the girls hunting down cool treasures as a result of going down the world's biggest and highest-stakes scavenger hunt written a hundred-ish years prior to the present time.

Gonna be giving MAJOR spoilers for the first book in the trilogy, and there'll (probably) be one post per book in the trilogy. If you haven't read the book, here's a copy on the Internet Archive you can read before skipping ahead to the review, enjoy, it's pretty good. If you've already read the book or don't care about spoilers, please proceed below the cut :3

The story begins with the girls on summer vacation in Scotland. Shenanigans get started when they meet this old hermit woman who has in her house a mysterious heirloom tapestry with a mysterious poem on it.

The tapestry has this poem that talks about a place with sweet winds, petals that will lead you to something beneath them, something about midnight and birds, and an alabaster garden created for the "jewel of the palace" (like me to you), that is guarded by a friend with deep feet. Sounds like a whole lotta cryptic shnit the theory heads would enjoy :D

Anyway so the girls go visit Beitris (the hermit woman) the next day to return something they borrowed from her only to walk into a holdup :D

Said holdup-ers are these two grunts led by this mysterious lady hiding her identity under a black fedora and thick-framed Ray Bans. The girls deal with that situation real quick and get the guys to scarper (if you're wondering how they did that, "the police are coming"), and once it all blows over, they find that the thugs only stole the tapestry despite ransacking the entire place like raccoons. Such a realization leads to a revelation on Beitris's end, so she entrusts the girls with the tapestry's backstory in a segment I will describe as LAAANNNEEEE LOOOORRRREEEEEE (said in a MatPat voice, we'll miss you king :'])

-

The tapestry was a family heirloom passed down to Beitris by her grandmother Petra, who got it from her older sister Aurora Beatrix Lane, who is basically British Amelia Earhart. Wasn't into girly shnit, liked being outside and also archaeology, studied in the University of Cambridge as an Archaeology major and learned how to fly a plane, all while punting early 1900s gender norms into oblivion with her pants and motorcycle. Motorcycle queen, plane queen, archaeology queen, but then everything changed when this British Amelia Earhart did a British Amelia Earhart.

The context behind Aurora Beatrix Lane's disappearance is something relating to her work with her mentor Jan Von Klawitz, who was doing archaeology things with her and probably got up to some wild shnit, but we would never know because Aurora is very secretive about her plans and her destinations, and she only came home to the UK once, after her first trip, and that was when she gave smol child Petra the tapestry to guard because it led to "a very precious treasure", but she can't show it yet for the time being. The vibe was Aurora was planning on using the tapestry to show the treasure it hides once she's done with her archaeology shenanigans.

But then she did an Amelia Earhart but completely untraceable since she never revealed her destinations, so uh there's that :D

-

Back to the present, this little storytime from Beitris has gotten the girls sucked into a rabbit hole. They are now hyperfixated like nobody's business and this Aurora Beatrix Lane is JUST LIKE THEM FR, and as a result they decide that y'know what they still have a few days before classes in Mouseford starts, and while they're at it, they're gonna find Beitris's tapestry and maaayyyybeeee find the alabaster garden. First destination: Girton College at the University of Cambridge, Aurora Beatrix Lane's alma mater.

The girls take a quick jaunt to Girton by train and then by bus to have a lil' chat with the dean, who reveals to them that they're looking for the central archive if they're gonna be looking for the deets on a student from a hundred years ago, but uh the archive is closed for the day, please come tomorrow. (Wonder why, maybe it's because they rode from Scotland to Girton by train which takes a shnitload of time. /nsrs but fr tho I wonder if the original Italian had them drive over there by car-- they did rent an SUV, and going by car would be way faster, like it'll only take a seven-hour drive faster) They come back the next day, are let into the archives, and oop, they find a well-preserved diary with Aurora's initials hidden in the Stanley Library.

Y'know what that means, LANE LOOORRRREEEEE

-

So two months into her accompanying Jan on his excavations, she notes that Jan's been acting a bit sus lately-- being very nervous, being extremely protective over his luggage, being weird about hiding some of the relics he's found, and also a weird-ass incident where while exploring a small village's old castle, Aurora found a hidden chamber with a tome inside that Jan immediately snatched and was like "I'll take care of it don't worry, don't worry about the protocol stuff I'll be fine I'll take care of it". And then he went back to "normal" after that. Hmmmm.

A month later, while Jan was talking with one of his collaborators on their train to England, Aurora stumbled into the tome again, suspiciously in Jan's personal luggage instead of being properly archived and catalogued like it should've been. She read it, saw a thing about the Seven Treasures of the World, and that caused her protagonist genes to kick in since now she's now very tempted to look into finding them and showing them to the world.

After that, she went to some libraries to investigate and eventually decided to confront Jan about the whole treasures thing and his first reaction was he was pissed, calling Aurora a snoop and everything poking into his things. Then after calming down he said "just pretend to not see", but oh no, dear reader, Aurora was not gonna pretend to not see. She ain't gonna pretend to not see the fact that her mentor was actually a treasure hunter and collector who'd been using his occupation as an excuse to snatch some nifty treasures and keep them to himself like every European country who's stolen artifacts from Asian countries ever, ohohohooooo noooo, she's gonna do something about it.

-

The girls scuttle on over back to Scotland and Beitris, to find that uh oh dear, the thugs came back again and this time they were asking about the girls specifically. Beitris pulled the same trick the girls pulled to get them to leave. So NOW the thugs are looking for the girls for whatever reason and wanna know their deal. Anyway, the girls show Beitris Aurora's diary, tell her about the summary, and also that unfortunately some of the pages are missing, and the diary doesn't say shnit about the tapestry so far. Beitris helps by giving them a letter that Aurora sent to Petra about the tapestry and its treasure, but interestingly mentions that she should "only trust Robert".

Since I haven't mentioned him before, Robert Neville was Aurora's flight tutor, a flying medic, and was toootttallllyyyyy just friends with Aurora you guys they were totally just frie--

He is dead in the present time, but his nephew John Neville is a (former) lighthouse keeper for the Ar-Men lighthouse in the IÎe de Sein, Brittany, France. So the girls head on over there, land in France, insert a thing where Vi feels like she's being watched but is like "maybe it's just a me thing, I dunno".

They head over to the Île de Sein, find an old man who turns out to be John, are invited to his house, tell him about their situation, and John mentions that he himself has been researching like crazy too about Aurora ever since hers and Jan's simultaneous disappearance over the same place at the same time in the same terrible storm. And also the fact that Robert was totally devastated when he got the news and spent years looking for her. He gives them his notes that he's accumulated over decades of researching in his pastime (which amounts to just Aurora's trip to Mexico), and tells them that since Aurora was looking for seven treasures, they'll need to find out where her seven trips took place, which will not be easy because Aurora was extremely secretive, and she only made her first trip even remotely public.

First place is Mexico so might as well head on over-- oh god the holdup-ers are back to holdup.

The thugs snatch Aurora's diary and book it before the girls can do much besides get an impromptu ocean bath, and oh dear, the thugs' boss has them now, and it's not the mafia cosplayer lookin' woman. But that's something I'll address later :3

Nonetheless, they carry on since the thugs never stole John's notebook, and they use it to go to the Puuc Route in Mérida, Yucatán (sounds very specific until you realize that Mérida is the capital of the Yucatán, and one thing everyone and their mother knows about the Mayan ruins there like Chichen Itza) to find more clues.

They do some more research on the Puuc Route, find some clues about "an invisible place, guarded by the chattiest of creatures", discover that it means they have to go to Uxmal, get a dub against the unfortunately acrophobic thugs, and realize that yes, Aurora did in fact sneak another one of her diaries in there.

This one doesn't have as much Lane Lore to contribute besides a clue that the girls find leads to Kannauj, Uttar Pradesh, India, a city known for its perfumes :3 sounds like "sweet winds", doesn't it? Oh and there's also something about a place with two lakes, which turns out to be Lakh Bahosi, a bird sanctuary about an hour's drive away from Kannauj. The girls head on over and try to do some investigating, but it doesn't take them that long to find a pair of grunts struggling under the weight of a very familiar tapestry while their boss was struggling to supervise them with her heels constantly digging into bird sanctuary dirt.

Anyway so the girls concoct a little scheme to steal the tapestry and the thugs fall for it like fish for a fishing lure, and they managed to scatter with the tapestry. After getting to a private space in the sanctuary, they find a clue that leads them to a set of coordinates that they find is a beeg tree. Oh and the treasure seems to be a present that was made for someone close to Mumtaz Mahal, as in "the jewel of the palace", the woman the Taj Mahal was made for; and the tapestry has a set of coordinates that is leading them to a beeg tree, with deep roots/feet. Oh hell yeah it's all comin' together.

They get to the tree, deal with the mafia lady for a little bit, find the treasure, and it turns out it's a very exquisite perfume bottle made of alabaster called "The Perfume of the Earth". They find a little note from Aurora explaining the treasure and its value and the significance of finding it, and now the girls have found the treasure Aurora had been searching for, and now's the time for a villain reveal?

So I haven't talked about him yet and have glossed over this guy for the entire ramble. See the mafia lady, Cassidy? Yeah she's not the big boss here. It's this guy who has a whole secret base in Denali National Park, Alaska, and has been overseeing everything behind the scenes. And by everything, I mean everything: He was alerted to the whole thing with Cassidy's first raid of Beitris's house, found out about the girls' involvement, and for a good half of the book, was trying to figure out what the girls' motives are for interfering with his line of work and what they might know about this whole thing he's looking for, which is the alabaster garden.

This guy has been keeping tabs on the girls through Cassidy and her thugs, who've been stalking the girls ever since France. He and Cassidy figured out in Paris that the girls are Mouseford students on vacation, and he was the one who gave the orders to snatch the journal from there. He was the one who told the goons to tail them to Mexico, and he was the one who managed to look up the girls' names, backgrounds, reasons for being in Scotland, all from the comfort of his base in Alaska. And only then, only then did he go to India himself to supervise and put a cap to his goons' buffoonery.

Who is this guy? Well, he is a treasure hunter who just wants to enjoy the treasures Aurora Beatrix Lane has hidden from his great-grandfather a hundred years ago. That's right, meet Luke Von Klawitz, the current heir to the Klawitz legacy and the treasure trove Jan Von Klawitz left behind in spite of his disappearance. Unfortunately Jan was better (and old enough) to secure a family legacy of greedy artifact hoarding.

So while the girls were in Lakh Bahosi, Luke was too with the goons and Cassidy (who is not his right-hand man and more just... a subordinate trying too hard to impress him), being the babysitter with these guys on leashes, as he tries to keep their stupidity under control. He intercepts the girls as they're about to leave Lakh Bahosi, blocking their path, and asks about the alabaster garden. The girls obviously don't spill and prolly would've gotten themselves blackbagged and interrogated had a friend they made prior to Lakh Bahosi not shown up in her dad's truck and came in clutch. (It sounds cliche and like it came out of nowhere but trust me it makes sense in-universe-- after the girls left the friend's family restaurant that they were hanging at, Luke's goons came over to interrogate them about the girls and where they went. Subtlety, who is she?)

The girls bring the perfume to a nearby university so it can be brought to a museum, send the tapestry back to Beitris, and return home to Whale Island, to read the last bits of Aurora's second journal and presumably to

So that's the book :D I put in a LOT of spoilers, but I'd say that reading the book is still worth it because you'll be able to get the connecting tissues that tie the organs of this story together. H-hopefully this all made sense . .'''

First things first, if you're not used to how Scholastic kids' novels are written, then uh, you might wanna get used to it, because the English translation of Thea Stilton is very... that. It's not beating the kids' book allegations in English, unfortunately. On the brighter side, though, it's pretty good for Scholastic standards! The pacing's very fast, but it feels about right-- gives me the same energy as diving deeper and deeper into a rabbit hole and going to all sorts of places because of the hyperfixation responsible for consuming their sanity for all of a week or so. The dialogue isn't nearly as atrocious as the worst it's capable of being (oh trust me we'll get to that). The tapestry puzzle and how the girls work towards solving it is very coherent and logical for the situation they are in at the beginning, and it's very satisfying to see everything come together and for things to slowly make more and more sense in the poem despite it being as vague and puzzle box-y as it was.

The Lane family lore is very well-thought-out, and Aurora Beatrix Lane is the perfect spiritual predecessor to the girls, what with her love for adventure, love for travel, strong moral compass, and the strong compulsion to elbow drop every single feminine social rule under the sun. I can totally buy her being someone the girls would totally hyperfixate on researching, because she feels like that kind of compelling character-- a passionate young archaeologist who decided to put her own safety on the line for the sake of what she believed in and to dunk on Klawitz and his selfish (and very illegal) goals of hoarding the treasures of the world to himself.

As for the villain, I'll be real gamers, Luke Von Klawitz is probably the most intimidating if not terrifying villain in the entire franchise. He has drones spying on every corner of the world for him, he has goons he can contact at any time and have them do his bidding (to mixed results it seems), he has cutting-edge technology that he uses for terrifying means, all in the safety and comfort of his secret underground base in Alaska where he has his little basement filled to the brim with historical artifacts he's kept all to himself to enjoy. Lemme run this through you again:

He was able to learn the girls names, the university they're studying in, and why they were in Scotland in the first place, all without ever meeting them face-to-face or having his goons interrogate them directly. All he needed to learn all of this was the (not very helpful) research by Cassidy, and a few commands put into his world-connected supercomputer.

Are you intimidated yet? I sure hope you are :D this guy's got a lotta potential is what I'm saying. He's a bit of a brat who wants what he wants and wants it immediately, but he's also a bit of a chess master who looks over things in the background while his minions do all the work for him. Really the only thing holding him back is the incompetency of his goons, and technically it's not even that they're very stupid-- Cassidy and her grunts Stan and Max are very good at swooping in out of nowhere to wreak havoc, dip in and get out before anyone can do anything about it. They're decent if not good at the job they're usually assigned: low-level grunt work. Unfortunately they're not good at much else, which drove Luke insane this entire book, haha.

The girls' dynamic with Cassidy, Stan and Max was refreshing in the sense that the girls aren't always getting punted by them, and the goons aren't always taking Ls just from physical contact with the girls. Cassidy and the goons always had the element of surprise on their side, being able to show up out of nowhere and do their thing before the girls have time to even blink; but once the girls figured out their whole shtick, it was easy to learn that they are easily outclass-able by five mouse Oxford students in braincell count and thus act accordingly. They force the girls to think fast and come up with some snappy plans on the spot, and the girls force Luke to realize he hired Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum, and Tweedle Dummy as goons :D

Now uh, I have been complimenting this thing the entire time, but there is one little thing I have an issue within this book, and that is the whole... Power of Friendship thing they've got going on throughout the book.

Yes, unfortunately, the Friendship Curse has claimed this hardcover series too, and while it's not the worst here, it's still... it's still a bit atrocious :D

For instance, the conclusion Cassidy and Luke come to for the girls' reasons for interference is "friendship". Literally, Cassidy literally says to Luke, "It seems they did it out of friendship, Sir", and then Luke responds with an evil cackle and is like "FRIENDSHIP? THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP DOESN'T EXIST IN THIS WORLD! AIN'T NO WAAAAYYYYY THEY'RE NOT FIVE SCHEMERS WHO WANNA GET THE TREASURES THEMSELVES", which is like... I don't get that vibe from Luke anywhere else in the book? Luke values efficiency and getting what he wants-- he's not hired Cassidy to be all buddy-buddy with her, he hired her for a job and she has to work to fulfill said job. He just wants competent employees, and y'know what, that's valid. Not a single part in that have I seen "ew power of friendship". It's very villain for the sake of villainy kind of energy, which I don't think fits Luke with the other bits of information we get of him? He's following his great-granddad's footsteps-- not a single minute of that did that mean "the spirit of friendship doesn't exist get yo head outa the cotton candy"

Then there's... how this applies to the girls.

inhales

WHY DID THEY MAKE VIOLET THE GROUP'S FRIENDSHIP PROPHET GRAAAAHHHH

I probably would make a full-blown rant about this at some point, but one thing I never liked about any of the hardcovers was how Violet of all people is the group's assigned friendship prophet. She'd occasionally make a comment about how uh something something the power of love is the strongest of all, and every single time I don't like it :D

Sure fine you can chalk it up to character development since her early months in Mouseford, but in the earlier books it's heavily established that she's the pragmatic one, the braincell keeper, the one who keeps the girls' group ADHD on track or the one who reminds them that "hey we've been at this for a really long time and it's now 2AM, we should really turn in now". Being a friendship prophet is a Colette thing, not a Violet thing, and I'm not trying to insult Colette or anything like that. I would be far more okay with it if Colette was the one to go on about the "power of love" because she's literally the HOPELESS ROMANTIC! She's the one with her head in the clouds, the one most likely to fangirl about ships in movies, the one who chooses to ship Romeo and Juliet and pretend to not see the entire second act of said play for the sake of believing in love.

If Colette had a line where she gushed about the power of friendship, I would've just chalked it up to "that cheesy-ass statement is something she'd totally say ngl", as opposed to the jarring whiplash I get from seeing Violet of all people call upon the Power of Friendship.

Again, probably will rant about this at some point (lemme know if you're into that idea), but yeah -m-

Literally just chuck the power of friendship bits and replace them with something more practical/realistic/grounded/whateveryouwannacallit, and it's basically perfect! Even the bits where the girls make friends on their journey is believable! Those don't have to be altered at all! Geuh it drives me insane, almost to the point of wanting to do something about it....

Well, that's enough rambling for today. I can't use up all my steam on this first book-- I plan on making ramblings for the second and third books, after all.

See ya Stilton fans, and for the newcomers from Twitter, welcome :D I hope you enjoy your stay :D

[muirneach]

neil young and television

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

so a non-welcome home related ask and i'm sorry if you already answered this before, but what got you into dragons? i'm slowly stalking through your tumblr and i can't help but admire how beautifully and effortlessly you draw the scaley fuckers (/pos) ✨

i've actually never gotten this question, so this is a delight! allow me to Overshare about this

i became interested in dragons at an early age - like, kindergarten / 1st grade age. i don't remember exactly how it started, but i think it was my fascination with dinosaurs, oddly enough? i've loved those guys since some of my earliest memories. it wasn't a big leap from "giant 'lizards' from our past" to 'even bigger mythological 'lizards' from always". the Hobbit and the first Temeraire (im trying to get my hands on the full series now actually) were read to me at this young age too, and the only parts i remember are the big dragon scenes lmao

i do know the ball Really got rolling with the first How To Train Your Dragon movie, which i saw in theaters in 2nd grade. INSTANT obsession with dragons. i'll never forget how it felt to see Toothless for the first time. but in general, i couldn't get enough of em. i made my own dragon manual, i got the Dragonology books, it was the whole enchilada!

then in 5th grade, i stumbled upon the newly released Wings Of Fire: The Dragonet Prophecy book! immediately fell in love with it. and its what pushed me to start actively pursuing art! and also what pushed me into my first online space: ~Deviantart~. i saw all of the amazing art of my favorite dragons and wanted in on it. i can actually pinpoint the main person who's art i loved and found inspiration in: someone named Liighty! i don't remember their user, it's probably changed in the many years since. i loved their stuff and wanted nothing more than to be able to draw like them

long story short, i've been in love with dragons for the majority of my life. HTTYD and WOF have been my biggest inspirations and fuel to the fire, and my first delve into the internet pushed me to start drawing dragons (specifically wof) like my life depended on it. i haven't looked back since!

[sportsthoughts]

.

[chussyracing]

the fact that max' every quote is either how much he can't wait to retire or how he despises competetion but his fans have this collective delusion about him being such a hardcore rAcEr and he can't wait to race against charles lol

to his credit, not all quotes! i just read one interview today that made me see red for different reasons too

[crescentfool]

some old draws of 🍊🫐 ! forever thinking of the different activities that encompass their friendship...

[jounosparticles]

where can i read bsd wan in english . please . i need to read it

[jils-things]

meow

[gender-trash]

*stumbling out of the email mines covered in blood* WHAT TIME IS IT

[cluepoke-archive]

hello clue! do you have any psychonauts merch or is the archive just for informational purposes?

Unfortunately I don't have any psychobauts merch :[ wich is a shame really, I even tried to get the psychonauts trolli candies when they first came out but every single gas station and corner store I visited seemed to be sold out haha, someday I'll get some merch of my own... but yeah the website is for archival purposes! I noticed that the Wikipedia had ALOT of old low quality images with little to no sources, prices, or dating so I took it upon myself to scrounge up old stuff and archive it... so far I have alot of both merch and promotional pieces to add to the site but if I'm being honest the executive dysfunction hit super hard and I haven't been able to update it in a few months ,,, I do think about it a TON though!